Running Head: COMPARE AND CONTRAST A FALSE POSITIVE VS.

A FALSE
NEGATIVE AND THEIR IMPACT ON ORGANIZATIONS

Thelma Landeros
Research Paper 4: Compare and Contrast a False Positive vs. False Negative and Their Impact on
Organizations
Capstone II - ORG 4361
Rebecca Lynch, Ph.D.
Jun 16, 2019
 Compare and Contrast a False Positive vs. False Negative and Their Impact on Organizations 2

Business organizations have been finding ways to manage false positives or false

negatives within the industry. A false positive (FP) or a false negative (FN) result can negatively

impact the organizational control process. According to Annie McKee, a control process includes

systems for establishing standards to achieve goals, monitoring and measuring performance,

comparing performance to standards and taking corrective action as necessary (McKee, 2014).

This paper will compare and contrast false positive versus false negative and their impact the

medical field and other business organizations with control mechanisms such as data mining

(DM). The future of the business industry can be determined by preventing disasters and

improving performance.

Data mining (DM) is becoming one of the most wanted after-decision support tools with

expenses for hardware and software. DM is the efficient discovery of relevant information from

large customer databases to improve any corporation decision making, which assists managers to

make more informed decisions. For instance, Wal-Mart usage of DM information, found a link

between items that had no connection, such as babies’ nappies and beer but once placed close to

each other, beer sales increased (Saban, 2001). Additionally, DM software is comparable to

using polygraphs for preemployment screening in that we collect information about past or

current behavior in order to predict future misconduct (Fung, 2010).

As a future leader, one must build an ethical foundation in terms of consumers personal

information. This means that a leader has a duty to encourage any business to be more caring and

in favor of justice, striving to improve competence among employees, and the quality of services

which includes promoting awareness. As professionals, an employee should practice

responsibilities such as concern for others and serve the public interest. For example, customer

privacy, which is the central issue separating DM proponents and opponents, has two dimensions
 Compare and Contrast a False Positive vs. False Negative and Their Impact on Organizations 3

of control. The first dimension (intrusion privacy) includes control of unwanted telephone, mail

or personal intrusion and the consumer’s environment, and the second (informational privacy) is

concerned with the control of information about the consumer, which is the dimension that lacks

control over creation, potential abuse and sale of personal profiles that has privacy advocates

complaining (Saban, 2001).

Using DM software involve prediction of rare events. This is an inconvenience, since by

the means of depending on indirect evidence and the impact of false negatives relative to false

positives tend to produce many errors. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) opinioned,

“The only way to be certain to limit the frequency of false positives is to administer the test in a

manner that would almost certainly severely limit the proportion of serous transgressors

identified” (Fung, 2010). Unfortunately, this means that as false positives diminish, so false

negatives emerge.

False positive selection occurs because random chance and the law of large numbers

affect the sampling process. In a way, results in a sample that yields false evidence of a

relationship where no one actually exists (Pinder, 2014). Moreover, FP results may serve to

reduce motivation to participate in future routine screening, and can negatively impact affective,

cognitive, and behavioral outcomes (Andrykowski, 2017). FN results may promote unethical

behaviors, such as cases of drug testing a person which could choose to keep the secret of the

unnecessary treatments, medicine, and attention. Efforts in minimizing this error will aggravate

the other and because the other error is less visible, its deterioration is usually unnoticed (Fung,

2010).

In addition, risk analysis control systems assist and protect corporations, customers,

suppliers, and overall communities, but can sometimes be unsuccessful. Control mechanisms in
 Compare and Contrast a False Positive vs. False Negative and Their Impact on Organizations 4

an organization can include a cash register, price-check device, or in the medical field a device

that could provide patient information, to name a few. Unfortunately, these gadgets can deliver

false positives. In a recent medical study, a university hospital in South Korea investigated the

use of a mobile health app (mHealth) to assess the potential for its utilization in a clinical

environment. By reviewing the usage data among a small group of users and by assessing their

feedback with the data related to blood culture sampling (Chong etal, 2016). The patient’s

parameters for blood cultures were sample volume, sampling site, time and are key to affecting

the sensitivity and specificity for identifying organisms in the bloodstream.

The accuracy of a blood culture test is vital when evaluating patients with suspected

bacteria, or fever of unknown sources. Obtaining an inaccurate blood culture result could lead to

a false positive result, affecting follow-up treatments which can be critical conditions for a

patient, the hospital organization and including the community. By using the mHealth app, the

hospital staff would be able to prevent false positives by monitoring the process of blood culture

tests sampling and support streamlined workflow at the point of care by checking the patient’s

identity and doctor’s order in real time. Another way to prevent false positives or negatives will

be comparing the prescribed blood culture test with the patient’s information that need the lab

test at the moment or at the bedside, which facilitates the entry of blood culture data, and ensure

that the point-of-care guidelines are followed.

Therefore, organizations need to take initiative in terms of consumers personal

information. The mHealth app used a hospital Wi-Fi network and gateway server, which

prohibits direct access to the legacy database via device certification and encryption functions

(Chong etal, 2016). Another important factor to prevent any false positives or negatives, include

to establish an internal hospital policy regarding the volume recording of blood culture sampling
 Compare and Contrast a False Positive vs. False Negative and Their Impact on Organizations 5

parameters to manage and improve blood culture quality. This strategy could manage and guide

nurse-clinicians to improve the quality of the tests, thus preventing any false positives or

negatives.

In conclusion, business organizations have been finding ways to manage false positives

and false negatives within the industry. Both FP or FN errors can negatively impact the

organizational control process. FP screening test results could diagnose a patient wrongly when

they don’t have a disease, versus a FN result may prevent a patient of not receiving the accurate

treatment. By encouraging any business for self-awareness, in favor of justice, and striving to

improve competence among employees, the future of the business industry can prevent FP

disasters and improve staff performance.

 Compare and Contrast a False Positive vs. False Negative and Their Impact on Organizations 6

References

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McKee, A. (2014). Organizational Controls: People, Processes, Quality, and Results. In A.
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