5. Patients admitted to the hospital for pneumonia should be given antibiotics within six hours of arrival. Early treatment with antibiotics has been shown to reduce complications.

The top 10 hospitals report a success rate of 100%, and the state average is 95%. To determine if her hospital is meeting the state average, the director of quality improvement has sampled fi ve patients per week over the preceding 25 weeks. The Ch06Problems.xls fi le, Problem 06–05 tab, records the hours lapsed between admission and recording of antibiotic administration. Create X − and R charts. Interpret the hospital ’s performance based on your control charts and identify any issues that should be investigated.