Package 'patientcounter'

#' 10 observations showing patient time in and out.

Description

A dataset containing ten sets of time in and out by bed. This simulates patients moving in and out of departments or hospitals.

Usage

beds

Format

A data frame with 10 rows and 4 variables:

bed

a grouping variable, representing a specific bed

patient

individual patients

start_time

time each patient moved into their current bed

end_time

time each patient moved out of their current bed

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Count the number of patients by interval

Description

Counts the number of patients in each location, by the specified interval, for the duration of the patient admission. Results can be returned as a grand totals, grouped totals, or individual patient level per interval.

Usage

interval_census(
  df,
  identifier,
  admit,
  discharge,
  group_var = NULL,
  time_unit = "1 hour",
  time_adjust_period = NULL,
  time_adjust_value = NULL,
  results = c("patient", "group", "total"),
  uniques = TRUE
)

Arguments

df	dataframe, tibble or data.table.
identifier	Unique patient identifier.
admit	Datetime of admission as POSIXct.
discharge	Datetime of discharge as POSIXct.
group_var	Optional unique character vector to identify specific patient location or responsible clinician at each interval, or at time of a change in location / responsible clinician during the interval.
time_unit	Character string to denote time intervals to count by e.g. "1 hour", "15 mins".
time_adjust_period	Optional argument which allows the user to obtain a snapshot at a specific time of day by making slight adjustments to the specified interval. Possible values are "start_sec","start_min","end_sec", or "end_min". For example, you may specify hourly intervals, but adjust these to 1 minute past the hour with "start_min", or several seconds before the end with "end_sec".
time_adjust_value	Optional. An integer to adjust the startor end of each period in minutes or seconds, depending on the chosen time_adjust_period (if specified).
results	A character string specifying the granularity of the results. 'patient' returns one row per patient, group_var and interval. The results can be input to external tools for further analysis or visualisation. 'group' provides an overall grouped count of patients by the specified time interval. 'total' returns the grand total of patients by each unique time interval.
uniques	Logical. Specifies how to deal with patients who move during an interval, and subsequently have two or more records per interval. Set "uniques" to TRUE to get a distinct count of patients per interval. To be clear, TRUE will count patients only once per interval. Setting "uniques" to FALSE will count each patient entry per interval. If a patient moves during an interval then at least two rows will be returned for that patient for that particular interval. This is useful if you want to count occupied beds, or track moves or transfers between departments. In general, if you use a grouping variable, set "uniques" to FALSE.

Value

data.table showing the patient identifier, the specified group variable , and the count by the relevant unit of time. Also included are the start and end of the interval, plus the date and base hour for convenient interactive filtering of the results.

Examples

interval_census(beds, identifier ="patient", admit = "start_time",
discharge = "end_time", time_unit = "1 hour", results = "total")

interval_census(beds, identifier ="patient", admit = "start_time",
discharge = "end_time", time_unit = "1 hour", results = "patient")

interval_census(beds, identifier ="patient", admit = "start_time",
discharge = "end_time", group_var = "bed",
time_unit = "1 hour", results = "group", uniques = FALSE)

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