Quantitative Data Analysis

Quantitative Data Analysis
Topic: CT and SPECT scan procedures at medical facilities in Minnesota State
Hypothesis: H0 – The number of CT procedures performed in hospitals in the State of Minnesota are equal to the number of SPECT procedures performed in hospitals within the same state.
Conduct a literature review on the selected topic and summarize at least two scholarly sources
MN HCCIS imaging procedures results for 2013 were evaluated and presented as follows. Firstly, the facilities were evaluated whereby it was determined that hospitals were most common with 134 facilities, followed by imaging facilities with a count of 58. Clinics had a count of 48, mobile units had a similar count of 48 while dental offices, federal VA hospitals, and surgical centers had facility counts of 8, 2 and 2 respectively. The implication is that hospitals are the most common facilities in Minneapolis. Secondly, a total of 1,080,892 CT scans procedures were offered while 63,068 SPECT scan procedures were offered. The data indicates that one SPECT scan procedure was offered for every 17 CT scan procedures.
Thirdly, the results showed that on average, federal VA hospitals offered the most CT scan procedures with each facility offered 11,223 procedures. The same was noted for SPECT scan procedures whereby federal VA hospital offered the most procedures with each facility offering 1,884 procedure with surgical centers not offering any SPECT procedures. Finally, the hospitals offered the most number of CT scan and SPECT scan procedures, identified as 799,318 and 58,260 respectively.

The results make it clear that the test hypothesis has been rejected since the numbers of CT scan procedures performed in the State of Minnesota are NOT equal to the numbers of SPECT scan procedures performed within the same state.
The hypothesis test results are acceptable since CT scans are more commonly used than SPECT scans. This is because CT scan is a cheaper technology that is more readily found in smaller facilities. Also, it is routinely used for anatomy evaluation in disease and injury diagnosis to plan radiation, surgical and medical treatment. In contrast, SPECT scan is more expensive and found in larger facilities. Also, it makes use of radioactive material in physiological analysis thereby requiring caution in its application and making it less common for diagnostics (Pawlicki, Scanderberg & Starkschall, 2016; Prekeges, 2013). In this respect, medical facilities in Minnesota State make greater use of CT scan procedures, than SPECT scan procedures.
Identify relevant variables (two or more) and justify your choices
The variables of interest were the facility type and imaging procedure. The facility type is of interest since it shows specialty and capacity to meet the population diagnostic needs. It is expected that larger facilities will report more procedures when compared to the smaller facilities. Also, the procedures will be identified and considered of interest since the research focus is to evaluate the correlation between the numbers of CT scan and SPECT scan procedures carried out in the state. As a result facility type and imaging procedure are the variables considered relevant to the research.

References
Pawlicki, T., Scanderberg, D. & Starkschall, G. (2016). Hendee’s Radiation Therapy Physics (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Prekeges, J. (2013). Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.