Question

A hospital marketing director has several research projects to undertake this quarter. He must try to determine the appropriate sampling methodology in light of each problem. Provide your recommendation on each issue:

a. The hospital urology department wants to establish a sexual dysfunction clinic. The department head wants to get an estimate of the number of males aged 35 to 60 in the community suffering some form of sexual dysfunction.

b. A primary care medical group is trying to determine whether patients are being greeted and serviced appropriately by the billing and admitting departments.

c. An MCO is trying to determine what concerns physicians have in agreeing to become part of its panel of doctors who will treat the managed care plan’s subscribers.

Answer 1

a. The hospital urology department wants to establish a sexual dysfunction clinic. The department head wants to get an estimate of the number of males aged 35 to 60 in the community suffering some form of sexual dysfunction.

The department is looking for an estimate of people suffering from sexual dysfunction. The sampling unit for this study is males between age group of 35 to 60 years. Geographical areas in close proximity to the hospital could be selected for survey. The department can use proportionate stratified sampling in this case. The respondents could be divided into five groups of 25 to 40 years; 41 to 45 years; 46 to 50 years; 51 to 55 years and 56 to 60 years. The sample could be drawn proportionally from each group. This type of sampling technique is most appropriate because it will get estimates of people with the sexual dysfunction in terms of age.

b. A primary care medical group is trying to determine whether patients are being greeted and serviced appropriately by the billing and admitting departments.

The task is to determine whether patients are greeted and esrviced appropriately by billing and admitting departments. The sample unit here is the patient who visits the hospital. Systematic sampling technique could be used in this case. The first patient is drawn at random and subsequent patients are selected at equal interval from the first patient. For example, if the sample size is 50; the first patient in the sample could be selected ta random an let us suppose, first patient in the sample is fifith patient who visits the sample. The next 50 patients are selected after every fourth patient that is the fifth patient. In this way 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and so on is selected until 50 patients are selected.

c. An MCO is trying to determine what concerns physicians have in agreeing to become part of its panel of doctors who will treat the managed care plan’s subscribers.

The task is to study concerns of doctors in agreeing to become part of the panel to treat subscibers. The sample unit in this case is individual doctors. The sampling frame is list of doctors from the administration. The appropriate sampling technique is quota sampling. Quotas of male female, full time or part time, clinical or non-clinical can be made and doctors in each qouta can be selected from the hospital.