Statistics skewed by ER directive?

[James]

An anecdote I was told the other day is very troubling.

A cyclist crashed & was taken to hospital. A nurse made notes. The
cyclist asked why the box was ticked that he'd been wearing a helmet.
The nurse replied they'd been instructed to assume a helmet was worn and
had been smashed if a cyclist presented without a helmet and had no head
injury.

Has this been observed in countries other than Australia?

--
JS

[AMuzi]

I don't know but check boxes and other obsessive data
gathering brings out defiance in humans generally. Which is
why I'm "Asian Pacific Islander" on my driving license. They
would not accept "Human" for "Race", race being an
artificial construct with no upside. Hospitals, DOT, Census
etc - screw them all.

--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

[Andre Jute]

This is why it is so important for the guy setting up the hypothesis and the questionnaire to go out in the field and work with the form-fillers, to see what they actually do. You'd be amazed at what simple instructions can be misinterpreted by people from a different background, a different social class (demographers cannot afford to be politically correct, because political correctness skews the result, every time), and a different education. Too many of the folk making up the questionnaires think that's the end of the job until they collate the numbers.

AJ
Straight as a die

[Andre Jute]

On Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 2:12:50 PM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
>
> I don't know but check boxes and other obsessive data
> gathering brings out defiance in humans generally. Which is
> why I'm "Asian Pacific Islander" on my driving license. They
> would not accept "Human" for "Race", race being an
> artificial construct with no upside. Hospitals, DOT, Census
> etc - screw them all.
>
> --
> Andrew Muzi
> <www.yellowjersey.org/>
> Open every day since 1 April, 1971

There are motives other than defiance. A fellow I knew was wheeled into A&E where his wife was on duty. They were in the process of divorcing. She ticked the box for "Other" and then in the please-explain space wrote "Humanoid".

AJ
Fascinated by humanity. Not so keen on bots.