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Steps to Develop Pareto Charts Using Microsoft Excel 2010 
1. Create a simple table in Excel that includes the following information:
‐ Medication Error
‐ Number of Medication Error
‐ Percentage of Medication Error (To calculate the percentage of Medication
Error; divide the number of error by the total number of errors. So, for instance, the
Percent for wrong drug would 32/78 = 41%)
2. In our table, we want to list these categories by number of Medication Error in
descending order. That is, first list the most Errors, then the one with the second most
errors, and so on. After doing this we want to add one more column to our table
include Cumulative Percent for Each error .To calculate the cumulative Percent, add
the Percent of that category to all the other percentages above it in the list. For
example, the cumulative Percent for Wrong Route would be 41% + 31%+13% =85%.

  Medication Error  Number Percent  cumulative Percent 

Wrong Drug  32  41%  41% 
Wrong time  24 31% 72%
Wrong Route  10  13%  85% 
Wrong Dose  8  10%  95% 
Wrong Patient  4  5% 100%
Total  78  100%   
 

Graph:

1. Select the Medication Error columns, then click on CTRL and select the number
columns & cumulative Percentage columns.
2. Click on insert option and choose column chart.

40

30

20

10

0
Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong
Drug time Route Dose Patient
 

HTD 5 Developing pareto on excel HCQP Course 05May2013 Page 1 of 3

 
 3. Select the Percent columns and press on the right click to select the option of change
Series Chart Type

 
4. Select line chart type

 
5. Click on the line chart and press on the right click to select the option of format data
Series and choose secondary Axis.

 
 

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7.  Draw a line at 80% on y-axis parallel to x-axis. Then drop the line at the point of
intersection with the curve on x-axis. This point on the x-axis separates the important causes
on the left and less important causes on the right.

35 100% 100%
95%
90%
30 85%
80%
25 72% 70%
20 32 60%
50%
15 41% 40%
10 24 30%
20%
5 10 8 10%
4
0 0%
Wrong Drug Wrong time Wrong Route Wrong Dose Wrong Patient
 

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