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:

1. 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.
2. Is the hospital capable of consistently achieving bed turnaround times of 120 minutes ±15 minutes without improving the process?