Assignment
1        

Exercise 1:

A study of 10 nurses in two comparably-sized hospitals revealed
the following number of years of within-hospital experience:

Compute the mean, median, and mode of both sets of data.

Compare the two sets of data and summarize your conclusions.
Which set of data is more consistent? Justify your answer.

What does your analysis suggest about the long-run viability of
nurses talent in the two hospitals?

Exercise 2:

Use the data from Table 1 below to prepare a bar chart comparing
the number of male and female deaths from accidents, cancer, heart
disease and diabetes. [Note: Show two bars for each
category of death, but distinguish them by different colors or
patterns.]

Table 1: Leading Causes of Death in the United States 2005
Data

Source: National Center for Health Statistics:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr5203.pdf

Exercise 3:

What type of average would be most appropriate for determining
(a) the average income of employees of Sacred Heart Hospital; (b) a
course grade where projects count 15%, quizzes 30%, and exams 55%;
(c) the average % increase in the healthcare costs over the
five-year period.

Exercise 4:

A group of recent marketing graduates from a small liberal arts
university have jobs ranging from selling shoes at $18,000/yr. to
playing professional basketball at $1.5 million/yr. Current
salaries for the 22 graduates are (in $000): 24, 20, 32, 36, 18,
28, 42, 37, 20, 27, 52, 31, 45, 33, 20, 1500, 23, 38, 27, 31, 36,
40.

What is the mean salary for these graduates?

Suppose the university wished to publish a brochure for
prospective students, and include some indication of the average
salary of recent graduates in various disciplines. Compute the
average that best represents the central tendency of the data on
marketing graduates.

Explain your choice of one average over other averages for the
data.

Is the distribution symmetrical? Why or why not?

Exercise 5

Baxter Pharmaceuticals has developed a new drug, TPC, designed
to maintain a certain viral blood cell count at 600 points plus or
minus a few percents. In support of their application to distribute
the drug nationally, Baxter submitted sample data to the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) on 125 of the 3,000 patients who used the
drug on a trial basis. For the 125 patients tested, the average
viral count was 560; however, the FDA withheld permission to
distribute the drug because the 560 was 40 points below the 600
expected. To gain approval, Baxter decided to phone the attending
physicians of all 3,000 patients who were using the drug on the
trial basis. Upon receiving all these data they found that the
average viral count was 596. Baxter summarized the results of the
survey, sent the data to the FDA, and ultimately received their
approval.

What are the respective values of the parameter and statistic in
this study?

How would you explain the difference between the population
value and the sample statistic—assuming the population value was
correct and the sampling procedure was appropriate?

Identify some possible sources of error.

      Exercise 6

Use the data in World Health.xls (posted into blackboard in the
“Assignments” folder)to analyze life expectancy in the
world.Determine the mean, median, mode, range, variance, and
standard deviation for CIA life expectancy total, male, and female.
What do these numbers show?

      Exercise 7

The following is the number of minutes to commute from home to
work for a group of nurses. A frequency distribution needs to be
developed:

18       
5       
48       
37       
41       
19       
2       
26       
16        13

31               
26       
21       
32       
25       
30       
43       
35       
42        38

How many classes would you recommend?

What class size would you suggest?

Organize the data into a frequency distribution (both absolute
and relative).

Organize data into a histogram.

Organize data into a cumulative frequency polygon.

Comment on the distribution (lowest, highest, most common)

      Exercise 8:

For an equipment used in hospital, the data shown below indicate
the battery lifetime in hours:

a.       Compute the mean and the
standard deviation of this distribution.

      Exercise 9:

A sample of the hourly wages of 15 employees at one of the
Hospitals in Spokane was organized into the following table:

a.       Compute the mean and
standard deviation of the hourly wages.

      Exercise 10:

Answer the following questions:

What is the level of measurement for each of the following
variables?

a.       Distance nurses travel to
Sacred Heart Hospital

b.      A classification of patients by
the state of birth

c.       A classification of
employees by ethnicity

d.      A classification of workers by
industry

e.       Selling price of the
Statistics for Nursing textbook

f.       Student IQ ratings

g.      Number of hours nurses work per
week

h.      Patient satisfaction with the
service provided by the hospital

i.        A classification of
patients by gender

j.        A patient’s
temperature

k.      Degree of pain expressed by a
patient (measured on a 1 to 10 scale)

For each of the following variables state whether they are
quantitative or qualitative.

a.       Gender

b.      Number of beds in ICU

c.       Distance of the hospital
from downtown

d.      Selling price

e.       Healthcare costs

f.       Ethnicity

g.      Years of experience

For each of the following variables state whether they are
discrete or continuous.

a.       Weight of a patient

b.      Number of patients in a
unit

c.       Number of beds in
CICU

d.      Yearly rainfall in Spokane

e.       The time a patient waits
to obtain a service