SQL’s COUNT function might be one of the simplest tools I’ve learned, but in a clinical setting, it’s powerful.
Need to know how many patients were admitted last week? COUNT can do that. Want to see how many times a particular antibiotic was ordered? COUNT can do that too.
Example:
SELECT COUNT(*) AS TotalOrders
FROM MedOrders
WHERE DrugName = 'Vancomycin';Practical idea:
- Count the number of TDM (therapeutic drug monitoring) tests ordered per drug.
- Track the number of admissions to identify seasonal trends in certain conditions.
It’s a simple command, but it forms the backbone of many analytics queries.