Rant Du Jour
Oct. 15th, 2002 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerI've been handed a set of reports to do which make up a subsection of the Intensive Care Unit's report for the year 2001. I was handed 2000's report and told to do it for 2001, so my first step was to try and duplicate 2000's data, so that I could check my methodology. When I've got 2000 figures looking right, I'll then just change a single variable from 2000 to 2001 and the right figures will appear as if by magic.
The problem being that no amount of jiggery-pokery is making the right figures appear. There's a lot of possibilities involved, and the different people involved sometimes tell me different things about what the figures actually mean. For instance, the figures apply to a set of babies for 2000. Whether the figures are supposed to be those babies treated in 2000, born in 2000 or admitted in 2000 has a fairly large affect on the totals. Additionally, if a baby was admitted in 1999, went elsewhere for a bit and then was readmitted in 2001, is that an admission or not?
Also, the figures came from 3 different sources, each of which give conflicting totals, because the reporting systems are entirely separate and work in different ways. This year they plan to use one reporting source (me!), but this makes checking I'm conforming to the normal standards almost impossible.
Aaaagghh!!
The problem being that no amount of jiggery-pokery is making the right figures appear. There's a lot of possibilities involved, and the different people involved sometimes tell me different things about what the figures actually mean. For instance, the figures apply to a set of babies for 2000. Whether the figures are supposed to be those babies treated in 2000, born in 2000 or admitted in 2000 has a fairly large affect on the totals. Additionally, if a baby was admitted in 1999, went elsewhere for a bit and then was readmitted in 2001, is that an admission or not?
Also, the figures came from 3 different sources, each of which give conflicting totals, because the reporting systems are entirely separate and work in different ways. This year they plan to use one reporting source (me!), but this makes checking I'm conforming to the normal standards almost impossible.
Aaaagghh!!
