Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

You are a health care administrator (HCA) for a community hospital named Choice Hospital. As the HCA, you are working with new staff who will assist you with data collection and analysis for tracking and benchmarking performance in several key areas of the facility. As you work with the new staff, you will help them understand the meaning of health statistics and  the external resources available for locating health care statistics by completing the following:

• Define health care statistics. 
• Explain the purpose of collecting and reviewing healthcare statistics
• Identify 2 organizations that use health care statistics at the local, state, and national levels (e.g., CMS hospital system)   
• Identify 2 sources that are available to obtain healthcare statistics

Responses to Other Students: Respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates with at least a 100-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:

• What did you learn from your classmate's posting?
• What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?
• What clarification do you need regarding the posting?
• What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates' postings?