Q16 - The average length of stay

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Flaw

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: UH could have patients stay for less time w/o affecting the quality of care.
Evidence: EH has an avg stay of 4 days. UH has an avg stay of 6 days. Recovery rates are similar at both hospitals for patients with similar illnesses.

Any prephrase?
If we recognize that the Evidence relies on a COMPARISON between two hospitals, we might anticipate that LSAT wants us to consider possible Comparison issues. Could it be that EH has a lower average stay than UH because there's something meaningfully different about them? Another possible line of objection is that EH is releasing its patients TOO SOON! The author is assuming that UH patients are holding onto patients too long, but maybe EH's average stay is too short, and if EH increased its average length of stay it would IMPROVE its level of care.

Correct answer:
C

Answer choice analysis:
A) This is tempting, since the two ideas are related, but "equates" is very strong wording. Also, based on the conclusion, which says that you could CHANGE average length of stay WITHOUT CHANGING quality of care, the author clearly does not equate them.

B) Conditional Logic Flaw. Was there a conditional statement in the premise? Nope. Moving on.

C) Would this weaken? It points to a difference between EH and UH, and meaningful differences are the most typical way of weakening an argument that is based on a comparison. Is it meaningful? Yes! The author's premise is that "for a given illness, the recovery rates are similar". So, for example, for a tonsellectomy, both hospitals need to give the patients 2 days to recover. For a heart transplant, both hospitals need to give the patients 10 days to recover. Well, if it turns out EH does way more tonsellectomies and UH does more heart transplants, then that explains why there is good reason for UH to have a longer average stay. UH isn't just hanging onto patients for longer than necessary; they're treating more severe illnesses, in general, that require more recovery time.

D) Is this a Necessary Assumption? It's very extreme, which is a red flag. Length of stay is NEVER relevant to recovery rates? We can't accuse the author of thinking that.

E) Would this weaken? If patients prefer longer stays, that also explains why UH's length of stay is longer. But unlike (C), this explanation doesn't go against the conclusion/assumptions. The author could agree to (E) and still argue, "Sure, they PREFER it. But they don't NEED it. So we could cut our avg length of stay without affecting quality of care".

Takeaway/Pattern: Arguments based on comparisons are almost always weakened with by pointing out meaningful differences between the two things being compared.

#officialexplanation

[bradleygirard]

Alright, once again, perhaps my 'talking' through this can help me and anyone else who missed this.

The average length of stay at Edgewater is 4 days, as compared to 6 at University. Studies show that recovery rates at the two hospitals are similar for patients with similar illnesses, University could decrease its average length without affecting quality of care.
So, did you see it? the subtle scope shift in the middle of that? The stimulus begins with the average length of stay, which is of course an average of all the patients. However, it then goes on to talk about a sub-group of patients, those with similar illnesses, without defining the size of the subgroup. This is a tricky move, for without quantifying the sub-group, its easy to think that they are still talking about the same group i.e. all patients.
Think of it in this way, say edgewater has 100 beds and only treats mumps, and the average length of time to recover is 4 days. Now say that University also has 100 beds and mostly treats burn victims that absolutely need 5-7 days to recover, 98 of their beds are dedicated to treating burns, and only 2 to mumps. If university treated a measly(boo) 2 mumps patients, to a similar rate of success as edgewater, could university bring the average stay down to 4 days? What about all of those burn victims? They would all be leaving before they should because the two mumps patients in the hospital recover as well as those at edgewater.
(a) the argument does the opposite. It is saying that the hospital could lower the average stay while keeping the quality of care.
(b) the argument doesn't say that to keep the quality of care it is necessary to shorten the stay, just that it is possible to shorten the stay and have the quality remain.
(c) here is the winner, think about the mumps vs. burn victims example above
(d) in my opinion an attractive choice, but wrong nonetheless. First off, the argument isn't so broad as to say that there is no relevance, but merely that it can be changed. Also, this choice doesnt mention the fact that the argument revolves around averages.
(e) this answer doesn't work without establishing that patients' preference has a direct impact on 'quality of care'.

[bbirdwell]

measly mumps?

Again, a nice explanation.

I would have eliminated (D) as soon as I saw "never relevant." Too extreme for this argument, and doesn't get to the core of the problem, which is, as you stated, the sneaky sub-group of "similar illnesses."

[lisahollchang]

Wow this question is really tricky. I struggled with it but for some reason crossed C off as an early elimination and never really went back to it. For some reason it struck me as "obviously wrong" but that goes to show that I never really understood the flaw of this argument. Thanks bradleygirard for that really clear explanation!

[zainrizvi]

I see how the answer is (C) but I was thinking along the lines of something.. "maybe they have a similar recovery rate BECAUSE patients spend more time there" . So if you decrease average stay, you wound actually decrease recovery rate as well

That's why (C) popped out at me. Can anyone explain why this thinking is wrong?

[timmydoeslsat]

I believe your understanding of recovery rates is not what the stimulus wants portrayed.

"...Studies show that recovery rates at the two hospitals are similar for patients with similar illnesses."

This is used a premise to conclude that the average length of stay could be shortened at University Hospital without affecting quality of care.

We know that the average length of stay at University is 6 days while the other is 4.

The only crucial piece of evidence in this argument is the quoted line above. If it were the case that the hospitals treated the same type of patients, we could be a step closer in making this action happen.

Sure, University Hospital and Edgewater Hospital both treat severe dehydration and have similar recovery rates, but University Hospital also treats patients by doing experimental procedures on tough-to-treat illnesses that take weeks to do. This affects the average length of stay. This is what makes the stay longer. This is what (C) is talking about.

[griffin.811]

Nice work OP.

Before I got to the answer choices, I was thinking "Oh this is easy, clearly the author didn't take into account that the methods used to treat the patients with similar diseases, while yielding similar results, may have been different. In this case, one method of treatment (though equally effective, may take more time to recover than the other). Unfortunately, that was not an answer choice.

[torahisland]

Stimulus: Edgewater Hospital avg. stay: 4 days
University Hospital avg. stay: 6 days
- Since recovery rates for similar illnesses are equal, Edgewater can reduce avg. stay without affecting quality of care.

The weakness is that the conclusion is too broad to be supported by the evidence. The evidence is regarding the similar illnesses. But let's say they only share one illness: stomach aches. Meanwhile, the rest of the illnesses that Edgewater treats are severe, deathly sicknesses. University Hospital on the other hand treats, besides the few stomach aches, boredom brought on by university classes.

In short: Just because they share some illnesses and have the same recovery for those, does not mean all their illnesses are the same. Since they may have different illnesses, with different severities, the prolonged average stay can be justified. Thus, it is not necessarily true that a reduction can be achieved without affecting quality of care.

Once the weakness is clearly detected, the correct answer is clearly found. That's (C).

Wrong answers:
(A) I don't even know what this means. Equates the quality of the care with the average days a patient stays? Quality in general cannot be compared to a specific average number of days. (A specific degree can be equated to a specific number of days. But that is not stated in the answer choice or the stimulus.)
(B)Treats a sufficient condition of quality care as a necessary condition of quality care. It does not!
(D)Even if it is presuming in this case that length of stay is irrelevant to quality, it does not state that it is NEVER relevant. This is one isolated case. The use of never is too extreme.
(E)Since when do hospitals care about patients' preferences?

[Vivi]

Could there be any real reasons in eliminating E? E sounds like to provide an alternative reasoning and if we plugged it back into the gap, it works just peacefully with all the other parts in the promise, such as the average length of stays without quality changes (E says "generally"), both recovery rate and similar illness etc. (If it's wrong, please let me know where I missed things?)

One response above says that E doesn't has wording about quality, but neither does C!

Thanks for your help in advance!

[maryadkins]

Could there be any real reasons in eliminating E? E sounds like to provide an alternative reasoning and if we plugged it back into the gap, it works just peacefully with all the other parts in the promise, such as the average length of stays without quality changes (E says "generally"), both recovery rate and similar illness etc. (If it's wrong, please let me know where I missed things?)

One response above says that E doesn't has wording about quality, but neither does C!

Thanks for your help in advance!

The problem with (E) is that there isn't a reason why a hospital would let people stay just because they prefer it. That's not how hospitals work. You do have to infer this to get rid of (E) confidently.

[lsat2016]

Could there be any real reasons in eliminating E? E sounds like to provide an alternative reasoning and if we plugged it back into the gap, it works just peacefully with all the other parts in the promise, such as the average length of stays without quality changes (E says "generally"), both recovery rate and similar illness etc. (If it's wrong, please let me know where I missed things?)

One response above says that E doesn't has wording about quality, but neither does C!

Thanks for your help in advance!

The problem with (E) is that there isn't a reason why a hospital would let people stay just because they prefer it. That's not how hospitals work. You do have to infer this to get rid of (E) confidently.

I agree with the answer choice for C and I also chose it, but I was wondering how "picky" we need to be with answer choices. In real life, I would argue in this manner as well, by saying that Edgewater Hospital tends to treat easier medical cases than that of the University Hospital, but isn't this requiring a secondary assumption? Just saying that the illnesses are "different" doesn't indicate whether the illnesses are more or less severe.

Thank you

[MonicaH111]

Why doesn't the premise in the stimulus that recovery rates at the two hospitals are similar for similar diseases rule out answer C?

Answer C, which says that the hospitals tend to treat different illnesses, seems to contradict this premise.

I chose answer D because if there are patients with the same illness being treated at EH and UH, they have a similar recovery rate but stay two extra days at UH. So it seemed that the difference here is the length of stay and maybe if the patients at UH stayed 2 fewer days they wouldn't have the same recovery rate? I see now that D is extreme. Wondering if it had been worded in a less extreme way, would it have been correct? Or is there something else wrong with the answer?

Thanks for all these explanations