Heizer/Render, Operations Management 7th Edition and Principles of Operations Management 5th Edition
Internet Case Study for Supplement 10: Work Measurement
Chicago Southern Hospital
Chicago Southern, founded in 1954 and located at the edge of the University of Illinois at
Chicago Circle, is a privately owned 473 patient bed hospital. Close to upscale, gentrified
downtown communities as well as high-rise housing projects, Chicago Southern’s
patients represent a wide socioeconomic mix. Facilities include an emergency room, xray and lab facilities, a maternity ward, an intensive care unit, and an outpatient surgery
unit. The staff consists of 610 employees, including 343 nurses (201 RNs, 99 LPNs, and
43 student nurses).
Chicago Southern’s new administrator, Doug Benton, like many hospital administrators,
is under pressure from the nursing staff to off-load some of their nonprofessional,
primarily housekeeping, duties. Mr. Benton is pleased to do so as Chicago Southern, like
most hospitals, finds nurses in short supply. Moreover, the nursing staff represents a large
and expensive part of his budget. Any savings here could be substantial. However,
Benton believes he should have a work sampling study done to see just what the real mix
of nursing duties is and how much is really housekeeping. From his observations, he
thinks the mix is probably pretty good, with RNs only spending 15% of their time on
housekeeping. He is confident that the hospital’s analyst, Jack Meredith, can, after
discussions with him and members of the nursing staff, distinguish between
housekeeping tasks and nursing duties. For this study, he tells Meredith, everything that
is not housekeeping will be considered nursing.* He does want Meredith’s study to have
a 95% confidence level with an error of not more than 4%.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. As the analyst, design a work-sampling plan for this assignment.
2. How large must the sample be?
3. How would Meredith randomize the observations given that different nurses operate
differently and that duties change with each shift?
*Note that defining just what nursing duties are and are not is open for substantial discussion (e.g., how
much consoling of a patient and the patient’s family is part of the nursing task). The issue is simplified here
by making only the two classifications.