Ambulance response times again

[mark.wilcox@cranfield.ac.uk]

Dear Denizens

Thankyou for the many responses to my post regarding ambulance times and what constitutes a system.  As a follow on I thought it would be useful to show how the analysts in the NHS in the Uk are recording and analysing the times.  I have to say that this appears to be an unusual use of a chart, where the vector is the time scale running from 6 mins to 9 mins, and the scalar is the number of journeys recorded at time intervals over a fixed period of time. 
What we see on the charts are various patterns of behaviour around the 8 minute target which the auditors say amounts to weaknesses in the measuring system.  While they say there was no evidence of widespread data manipulation - the charts show a "sharp discontinuity" at 8 minutes - hmmm there's a surprise!

Im already arguing with colleagues about the use of charts in this way because I always assume that the vector should be "time" per se, (however, these charts do serve to highlight cheating and therefore useful for those who live in a blame culture).  If Im not mistaken this seems to be mixing enumerative and analytic data - but I would welcome your views on this. 

The website is: http://www.chi.nhs.uk/eng/cgr/ambulance/index.shtml where you will find pages of procedures for measuring and auditing ambulance performance.  

I hope you find time to have a look and take the discussion further

Regards

Dr Mark Wilcox
Centre for Business Performance
Cranfield School of Management
UK
 

Message posting through the Clemson CQI Web Server.