Self-study
Support The average length of stay for patients at Edgewater Hospital is four days, compared to six days at University Hospital. █████ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ █████ ██ ███ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ███ ████████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ██████████ ████████ █████ ████████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ████ ███████ █████████ ███████ ██ █████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that University Hospital could decrease its average length of stay without affecting its quality of care. This is based on the fact that the average length of stay for patients at University Hospital is higher than that of patients at Edgewater Hospital, and the recovery rates at University and Edgewater are similar for patients who have similar illnesses.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author overlooks the possibility that the proportion of patients at University Hospital that have illnesses that require longer treatment is higher than the proportion of those patients at Edgewater. This disparity could be the reason University has a higher average length of stay. “Similar recovery rates for patients with similar illnesses” doesn’t tell us that University and Edgewater have similar proportions of patients with each kind of illness.
16.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
equates the quality ██ ████ ██ █ ████████ ████ █████████ ███████ ██████ ██ ████
The author believes University can decrease average length of stay without changing quality of care. So the author doesn’t treat the two things as equal. The author believes that they are different and changing one does not necessarily change the other.
b
treats a condition ████ ████ ██████ ███ ████████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ██ █ █████████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ ████
The author doesn’t confuse sufficient and necessary conditions. The author doesn’t assert that anything is enough to preserve quality of care, nor does he assert that anything is necessary for preserving quality of care.
c
fails to take ████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ████ ████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ █████████ ████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████████
This possibility shows that the greater average length of stay at University could be due to having a higher proportion of patients with longer-to-treat illnesses. So, University might not be able to bring length of stay down without hurting quality of care.
d
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████ ██ █████ ████████
The author’s position is that University’s average length of stay could be brought down without impacting recovery rates. This doesn’t mean he thinks the length of stay could be brought down to zero without impacting recovery rates.
e
fails to take ████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ █████████ ██████ ██████ ████████ █████
What patients prefer has no impact on the author’s reasoning. Even if some might prefer longer stays, the author has statistics that appear to suggest that University can bring down its length of stay without affecting quality of care.