Hospital patients generally have lower infection rates and require shorter hospital stays if they are housed in priva...

Mehran on February 27, 2018

So this is a Paradox question.

What is the discrepancy we are trying to resolve?

Hospital patients generally have lower infection rates and require shorter hospital stays if they are housed in private rooms rather than in semiprivate rooms.

But this is not the case in Woodville's hospital, which only has semiprivate rooms, but has infection rates and length of stays that are the same as several nearby hospitals where most of the rooms are private.

So we are looking for a possible explanation to this discrepancy.

Let's take a look at (D), "Woodville's hospital has a policy of housing one patient per room in semiprivate rooms whenever possible."

Is this a possible explanation? Absolutely!

While Woodville only has semiprivate rooms, (D) states that they are actually used as private rooms (i.e. one patient per room) whenever possible so this is why we see the same infection rates and length of stays as several nearby hospitals where most of the rooms are private.

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.