#16 - The average length of stay for patients at Edgewater

[Dana D]

Hey Mo28,

You almost had it - using your example, lets say Edgewater Hospital and University hospital both treat 19 patients for cancer and 19 for the flu. For both these illnesses, the recovery rates are similar at both hospitals. Based on that reasoning, the author concludes that University Hospital could decrease the length of stay for patients.

However, the problem with this is the hospitals don't necessarily just treat 19 patients for cancer and 19 for flu. Each hospital probably also has a variety of other patients with a variety of other illnesses or conditions - the argument doesn't account for that at all, yet that variety is contributing to the difference in the average length of stay for patients at each hospital. We can't say that University Hospital can decrease the average length of stay for all patients without affecting the quality of care, because we don't know anything about how the hospitals treat patients with different illnesses (here 'different' means illnesses other than the 'similar illnesses' mentioned in the stimulus).

Hope that helps!

[teddykim100]

For anyone still stumped by this question it's actually a simple misread:

1st misread: Similar recovery rates for similar illnesses. NOT similar recovery rates (in general). If hospital A and B have similar recovery rates in general, and one has a length-of-stay (LOS) of 4 vs. 6 days, then that becomes an issue of equating LOS time to recovery rate. This part of the sentence is a complete trick: it's making you think it's strong evidence. "Similar recovery rates for similar illnesses? They must be very similar hospitals!". No.

it's me saying something like "Candidate A and Candidate B have similar positions on similar issues". Ok. So A and B are super similar then right? WRONG. Obviously, you can see the flaw in concluding that here. It's super vague. How many issues do they actually share similar positions? 1? 10? 240? The issue is conflating an existence of SIMILARITY with BEING SIMILAR. That's the crux of this problem. Don't read ahead until you understand this part.

2nd misread: The average length of stay. Seems like a lot of people caught this one but in case you didn't: if we already established that "having similar recovery rates for similar illnesses" means essentially nothing, you can see how going from "similar recovery rates" -> AVERAGE length of stay is completely ridiculous

They share similarities across SOME illnesses, so therefore the hospital ON THE WHOLE can experience a decrease in average length of stay? What about, drum roll, the glaring DIFFERENT ILLNESSES each treats?

I hope whoever phrased this question has their pillow uncomfortably flat for the next three days.