Case Study $2$: Reducing the Use of Patient Restraints

The quality director at Big Major Medical Center is concerned about the use of restraints with psychiatric

patients in the hospital. She has worked at the hospital for two years now and at times has felt that the

use of restraints is too high and quite unpredictable. The quality director compiled the following data on

the number of times restraints were recorded over the past $24$ months. She presented this data to the

nursing directors but was met with skepticism and the response "this has always been the case at this

hospital $-$ that is just the variable, unpredictable nature of restraint use".

Questions:

Does this process show common or special cause variation?

Is the current process stable and predictable?

What should the team's strategy be to improve the process?

How will they know whether or not a planned change will be effective?