The measures of central tendency can be used in the healthcare sector to determine the average data for the patient and medical professionals including the number of days spent in the hospital, average salaries and temperature. These methods ease the work of calculating lengthy computations to get the exact value ( Manikandan, 2011) . The measures of central tendency are not applicable to all situations. For example, the mean cannot be used where the data is of different populations, but the median and mode can be used in a similar sample. The mean and median are commonly used, but the mode is rarely applied.
The mean is an essential model of the data set. Mean is the value that that is common in the data (Laerd Statistics, n.d.). The salary of the medical employees is a suitable population to apply the median. The population has to have the same values to implement the mean method. For instance, the process can be applied to nurses and physicians with similar job groups. One of the characteristics that make it inappropriate to use the mean method is the differences in the range of data (Adamson and Prion, 2013) . For instance, in case the population of the hospital has a wide range of salaries including the minimum wage is $ 70,000 in a year and the maximum salary is $ 1.2 million in a year. Another example of an inappropriate data for computing the mean can be the differences in the age of patients. The way cannot be used to compare different populations to get the ratio. For example, it can be applied to get the average of men to women in the hospital they have to be computed differently.
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The median is the central outcome of a collection of data that is arranged from the least to the highest. Outliers along with skewed information partially influence the median. Some of the data does not have mode because every score appears once (Laerd Statistics, n.d.). The median is gotten by ranking the data in order. In case the data is uneven, half of the information is above the median, and the other part is below it (Grove, Gray, and Burns, 2014 p 333). An example of data that can be calculated using the median method is the number of days that patients stay in the hospital. The median separates the first half and the last portion ( Manikandan, 2011) . The medical professionals can use the median to determine the average days that a patient has spent in the hospital. Further, the healthcare providers can use the medians to determine the average temperature of a patient. It can also be used to determine the average results of the patient on disease in case they test positive. The median method cannot be appropriate where the data of the patient is similar. The median method cannot be used to determine the average intake of a patient’s medicine.
The mode method is not applied frequently as compared to mean and median. The mode is the result that is repeated in a collection of data (Grove, Gray, and Burns, 2014 p 333). According to Manikandan (2011), the mode is appropriate to a set of data that is repeated more than once. For instance, it can be used to determine the average salaries of medical employees in a health center. The mode cannot be applied to data that is not repetitive. For instance, the medical professionals cannot apply mode in establishing the salaries using different job positions. Mode requires that all information must be uniform ( Manikandan, 2011) .
In conclusion, the measures of central tendency assist the management of the hospital to determine the average data of the patients as well as the staff. The healthcare professionals use mean, mode, and median to determine the average temperature and length of days in the hospital. The measures of central tendency ease the work done in lengthy calculations. These methods differ in application, for example, the mean is not applied to data of different populations.
References
Adamson, K. A., & Prion, S. (2013). Making sense of methods and measurement: Effect size. Clinical Simulation in Nursing , 9 (6), e225-e226.
Burns, N., Grove, S. K., & Gray, J. (2015). Understanding nursing research: Building an evidence-based practice .
Laerd Statistics. (n.d.), Measures of Central Tendency. Laerd Statistics . Retrieved from www.statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/measures-central-tendency-mean-mode-median.php.
Manikandan, S. (2011). Measures of central tendency: Median and mode. Journal of pharmacology and pharmacotherapeutics , 2 (3), 214.
