medhead
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- Feb 13, 2008
- Posts
- 19,074
Something I just thought: how are the statistics for "alcohol related violence" collected?
For example, if a patient comes into hospital, you would need to establish:
Just seems confusing as someone would need to do a lot of connecting the dots with data not just collected by the hospital. My guess is that there is other violence which happens not necessarily alcohol-fuelled, though one could still make the argument that violence is violence and the lock out laws address all sorts of those, even if it is merely by limiting foot traffic and numbers.
- The patient was involved in a case of violence.
- The violence was a result of alcohol, or highly probable. The patient could well be a "sober" victim and their "drunk" belligerent may or may not be hospitalised alongside them. To be related to alcohol, it probably has to be established via testimony suggesting significant mental impairment (due to alcohol from a "sober" baseline), and/or something like blood alcohol level.
Just based on watching TV. I'm pretty sure that they ask everyone in an emergency room for details on how they got there. It's all part of the clinical history. I imagine they probably have weekly case studies on 47 year old male presenting with XYZ condition. It might be extremely surprising the amount of detail that can be given about any particular patient's situation if, say, they have an incorrect x-ray or something. There are probably whole groups of managers sitting around tables looking at all this information so they can predict and budget for expected demand, and that sort of thing, applying 6 sigma and all that stuff.
I reckon hospital data is probably pretty good, just from watching TV. Take it as anecdote.