Critical Reasoning

Hospital Administrator: In each of the past 10 years, as the cost of medical malpractice insurance and of new medical technologies soared, other hospitals have chosen to increase nurses' work loads or patients' cost of care. We have avoided both by eliminating inefficiencies in staffing, and by hiring Licensed Practical Nurses to perform many procedures previously performed by more highly-paid Registered Nurses. So even if our insurance and technology costs increase further, we can continue to avoid increases in nurses' work loads or patient's cost of care.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the hospital administrator's conclusion?
Choices

A The hospital pays the prevailing rate for Licensed Practical Nurses, just as it does for Registered Nurses.


B Registered Nurses still provide some services which Licensed Practical Nurses could perform.

C As technology improves productivity in most fields, and manufacturers moving to cheaper labor markets decreases costs in other fields, medicine and other areas that still depend on large amounts of domestic labor grow more expensive.


D Medical malpractice insurance accounts for a smaller portion of health care costs than is commonly assumed.

E State law allows Registered Nurses to provide a much wider range of services than it permits Licensed Practical Nurses to provide.

OA : B

IMO : A

C,E is weakening
D is out of scope.
B/w A and B - I think its A

sumanr84 wrote:IMO : A

C,E is weakening
D is out of scope.
B/w A and B - I think its A

SUMANR ... check i updated OA. I don't agree with it. This is a grockit question. Can someone help me understand the resoning ... although i do understand it is too decreasing the work pressure on the nurses. But a good explanation here would help me out.

A is the IMO and C,E is weakening,D is out of scope....

for more information can read..

https://www.medical-malpractice-court-cases.com/

I would agree that A sounds more reasonable choice....

How can the hospital avoid increase work loads for nurses or patient's cost of care even if insurance and technology costs increase further??


B. gives an option where we can replace the high paying registered nurses with practical nurses

IMO B :

Only after seeing the OA, I am able to nail down the problem.

See the basic assumption here is :

that we can continue the same process as we have done in the past.

It means : we can replace the registered nurses with the practical nurses.

it means : there is still some work (or some registered nurses) which can be replaced by practical nurses.

Hence B.

sumanr84 wrote:IMO : A

C,E is weakening
D is out of scope.
B/w A and B - I think its A

nah, how could it A while the passage itself states that "by hiring Licensed Practical Nurses to perform many procedures previously performed by more highly-paid Registered Nurses"?
C, D, E are all out of scope
only B

First time when I solve this question, I did mistake and choose E as an answer. But when I realised the mistake I agreed to B.

B is correct

RumpelThickSkin wrote:Hospital Administrator: In each of the past 10 years, as the cost of medical malpractice insurance and of new medical technologies soared, other hospitals have chosen to increase nurses' work loads or patients' cost of care. We have avoided both by eliminating inefficiencies in staffing, and by hiring Licensed Practical Nurses to perform many procedures previously performed by more highly-paid Registered Nurses. So even if our insurance and technology costs increase further, we can continue to avoid increases in nurses' work loads or patient's cost of care.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the hospital administrator's conclusion?
Choices

A The hospital pays the prevailing rate for Licensed Practical Nurses, just as it does for Registered Nurses.


B Registered Nurses still provide some services which Licensed Practical Nurses could perform.

C As technology improves productivity in most fields, and manufacturers moving to cheaper labor markets decreases costs in other fields, medicine and other areas that still depend on large amounts of domestic labor grow more expensive.


D Medical malpractice insurance accounts for a smaller portion of health care costs than is commonly assumed.

E State law allows Registered Nurses to provide a much wider range of services than it permits Licensed Practical Nurses to provide.

OA : B

IMO B

my way of attacking the problem

As the conclusion centers on the work load of nurses and cost of patient care, i looked for answer choices which are related to these issues

Only A & B seem to be related

as we are talking about work load I chose B