In recent years, quality control charts have been increasingly applied in the healthcare environment, for example, to monitor surgical performance.Risk-adjusted cumulative (CUSUM) charts that utilize risk scores like the Parsonnet score to estimate the probability of death of a patient from an operation turn out to be susceptible to misfitted risk models causing deterioration of the charts' properties, in particular, the false alarm behavior. Our approach considers the application of power transformations in the logistic regression model to improve the fit to the binary outcome data. We propose two different approaches of estimating the power exponent . The average run length (ARL) to false alarm is calculated with the popular Markov chain approximation in a more efficient way by utilizing the Toeplitz structure of the transition matrix. A sensitivity analysis of the in-control ARL against the true value shows potential effects of incorrect choice of . Depending on the underlying patient mix, the results vary from robustness to severe impact (doubling of false alarm rate). KEYWORDSaverage run length to false alarm, binary logistic regression, Markov chain approximation, Parsonnet score, power transformation, Toeplitz matrix 2206

Background: All-in-one station-based health monitoring devices are implemented in elder homes in Hong Kong to support the monitoring of vital signs of the elderly. During a pilot study, it was discovered that the systolic blood pressure was incorrectly measured during multiple weeks. A real-time solution was needed to identify future data quality issues as soon as possible.Methods: Control charts are an e ective tool for real-time monitoring and signaling issues (changes) in data. In this study, as in other healthcare applications, many observations are missing. Few methods are available for monitoring data with missing observations. A data quality monitoring method is developed to signal issues with the accuracy of the collected data quickly. is method has the ability to deal with missing observations. A Hotelling's T-squared control chart is selected as the basis for our proposed method.Findings: e proposed method is retrospectively validated on a case study with a known measurement error in the systolic blood pressure measurements. e method is able to adequately detect this data quality problem. e proposed method was integrated into a personalized telehealth monitoring system and prospectively implemented in a second case study. It was found that the proposed scheme supports the control of data quality.Conclusions: Data quality is an important issue and control charts are useful for real-time monitoring of data quality. However, these charts must be adjusted to account for missing data that o en occur in healthcare context.

The variable life-adjusted display (VLAD) is the first risk-adjusted graphical procedure proposed in the literature for monitoring the performance of a surgeon. It displays the cumulative sum of expected minus observed deaths. It has since become highly popular because the statistic plotted is easy to understand. But it is also easy to misinterpret a surgeon's performance by utilizing the VLAD, potentially leading to grave consequences. The problem of misinterpretation is essentially caused by the variance of the VLAD's statistic that increases with sample size. In order for the VLAD to be truly useful, a simple signaling rule is desperately needed. Various forms of signaling rules have been developed, but they are usually quite complicated. Without signaling rules, making inferences using the VLAD alone is difficult if not misleading. In this paper, we establish an equivalence between a VLAD with V-mask and a risk-adjusted cumulative sum (RA-CUSUM) chart based on the difference between the estimated probability of death and surgical outcome. Average run length analysis based on simulation shows that this particular RA-CUSUM chart has similar performance as compared to the established RA-CUSUM chart based on the log-likelihood ratio statistic obtained by testing the odds ratio of death. We provide a simple design procedure for determining the V-mask parameters based on a resampling approach. Resampling from a real data set ensures that these parameters can be estimated appropriately. Finally, we illustrate the monitoring of a real surgeon's performance using VLAD with V-mask.

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Independence between successive counts is not a sensible premise while dealing, for instance, with very high sampling rates. After assessing the impact of falsely assuming independent binomial counts in the performance of np-charts, such as the one with 3-σ control limits, we propose a modified np-chart for monitoring first-order autoregressive counts with binomial marginals. This simple chart has an in-control average run length (ARL) larger than any out-of-control ARL, i.e., it is ARL-unbiased. Moreover, the ARL-unbiased modified np-chart triggers a signal at sample t with probability one if the observed value of the control statistic is beyond the lower and upper control limits L and U. In addition to this, the chart emits a signal with probability γ L {\gamma_{L}} (resp. γ U {\gamma_{U}} ) if that observed value coincides with L (resp. U). This randomization allows us to set the control limits in such a way that the in-control ARL takes the desired value ARL 0 {\operatorname{ARL}_{0}} , in contrast to traditional charts with discrete control statistics. Several illustrations of the ARL-unbiased modified np-chart are provided, using the statistical software R and resorting to real and simulated data.

In the statistical process control literature, counts of nonconforming items are frequently assumed to be independent and have a binomial distribution with parameters ( n , p ) (n,p) , where 𝑛 and 𝑝 represent the fixed sample size and the fraction nonconforming. In this paper, the traditional n ⁢ p np -chart with 3-𝜎 control limits is reexamined. We show that, even if its lower control limit is positive and we are dealing with a small target value p 0 p_{0} of the fraction nonconforming ( p ) (p) , this chart average run length (ARL) function achieves a maximum to the left of p 0 p_{0} . Moreover, the in-control ARL of this popular chart is also shown to vary considerably with the fixed sample size 𝑛. We also look closely at the ARL function of the ARL-unbiased n ⁢ p np -chart proposed by Morais [An ARL-unbiased n ⁢ p np -chart, Econ. Qual. Control 31 (2016), 1, 11–21], which attains a pre-specified maximum value in the in-control situation. This chart triggers a signal at sample 𝑡 with probability one if the observed number of nonconforming items, x t x_{t} , is beyond the lower and upper control limits (𝐿 and 𝑈), probability γ L \gamma_{L} (resp. γ U \gamma_{U} ) if x t x_{t} coincides with 𝐿 (resp. 𝑈). A graphical display for the ARL-unbiased n ⁢ p np -chart is proposed, taking advantage of the qcc package for the statistical software R. Furthermore, as far as we have investigated, its control limits can be obtained using three different search algorithms; their computation times are thoroughly compared.

We provide comments on a research paper proposing a control chart to monitor the scale parameter of a Rayleigh distribution. Our primary focus is on improving its average run length profile. We determine limits such that, on average, one can detect any change in this scale parameter more quickly than to trigger a false alarm.INDEX TERMS Average run length (ARL), ARL-unbiased charts, Statistical process monitoring, Weibull distribution.

The improvement of surgical quality and the corresponding early detection of its changes is of increasing importance. To this end, sequential monitoring procedures such as the risk-adjusted CUmulative SUM chart are frequently applied. The patient risk score population (patient mix), which considers the patients’ perioperative risk, is a core component for this type of quality control chart. Consequently, it is important to be able to adapt different shapes of patient mixes and determine their impact on the monitoring scheme. This article proposes a framework for modeling the patient mix by a discrete beta-binomial and a continuous beta distribution for risk-adjusted CUSUM charts. Since the model-based approach is not limited by data availability any patient mix can be analyzed. We examine the effects on the control chart’s false alarm behavior for more than 100,000 different scenarios for a cardiac surgery data set. Our study finds a negative relationship between the average risk score and the number of false alarms. The results indicate that a changing patient mix has a considerable impact and, in some cases, almost doubles the number of expected false alarms.