The time from when a patient is discharged from North Shore Hospital to the time the discharged patient€™s bed is ready to be assigned to a new patient is referred to as the bed assignment turnaround time. If the bed turnaround time is excessive, it can cause problems with patient flow and delay medical procedures throughout the hospital. This can cause long waiting times for physicians and patients thus creating customer dissatisfaction. The admissions RN has assigned a patient care associate to measure the bed turnaround time for a randomly selected bed each morning, afternoon, and evening for 30 days. Following are the bed turnaround time sample observations:

a. Develop an x-chart to be used in conjunction with an R-chart using 3σ limits to monitor the bed turnaround times and indicate if the process is in control using these charts.
b. Is the hospital capable of consistently achieving bed turnaround times of 120 minutes ±15 minutes without improving theprocess?

Day 127 140 112 223 181 103 146 104 136 145 84 169 216 190 14B 157 142 166 Bed Turnaround Times (min) 135 155 128 135 155 158 135 122 158 163 146 152 124 178 205 151 102 178 167 122 154 160 145 167 115 137 106 125 208 163 103 144 126 10 159 204 158 152 138 134 211 20 21 98 133 212 180 160 131 165 24 25 126 156 202 157 108 138 156 144 184 138 150 165 106 155 148 29 142