You have worked with numerous hospitals on performance improvement initiatives to enhance organizational efficiency and effectiveness. You have a hospital client who contacted you to assist them with emergency room efficiency. The hospital conducted a study of the waiting time in its emergency room. The hospital has a main campus and three satellite locations. The hospital executive managers have established a business objective of reducing waiting time for emergency room cases that do not require immediate attention. To study these cases, a random sample of 15 emergency room cases that did not require immediate attention at each location were selected on a particular day, and the waiting time (measured from check-in to when the patient was called into the clinic area) was measured. The data are provided for you in ERWaiting.xls.

1. At the 0.05 level of significance, is there evidence of a difference in the mean waiting times in the four locations?
2. State the null hypothesis
3. State the alternative hypothesis
4. State the decision rule
5. Report the results and findings of your data analysis. Insert a copy of the output table in your report to the client.
6. Provide your client with your interpretation of the organizational problem. Based your assessment on the initial organizational diagnostic and assessment data. What additional information do you need in order to complete the organizational diagnosis and make a recommendation for an organizational improvement project? Why is this important to the success of the improvement initiative?