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QAM I (Midterm)
Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes (including typing time but excluding 15
minutes at the start and 15 minutes at the end)
Total Marks = 35
Batch: MBA06

Instructions:

1. You need to show the steps/ reasons for your answers.

2. Marks will not be awarded without steps/ reasons.
3. This is open book, open notes exam.
4. You may use scientific calculators / excel sheet / any other software for doing the
calculations.
5. You need to type the answers in word document and submit the same. Kindly note
that hand written answers with submissions as scanned pdfs /jpeg formats of answer
scripts will not be accepted.

Question 1 (Total Marks = 35):

The number of patients that arrive at a hospital emergency within a specific period of time has
been observed to follow constant average arrival rate and each arrival is independent of the other
arrivals. Analysis of historical data has revealed that the arrival rate is 6 patients/ hour. The time
between the arrivals of patients is also random and follows an exponential distribution.

(a) What is the probability that exactly 5 patients will arrive in the next 1 hour? (2 marks)
(b) What is the probability that not more than 10 patients will arrive at the emergency in the
next 3 hours? (3 marks)
(c) The standard deviation in the no of patients that will arrive in the next 2 hours is 5. Do you
agree or disagree? Kindly explain with proper calculations. (2 marks)
(d) What is the variance in the inter-arrival time between patients? Kindly explain with proper
calculations. (1 marks)
(e) Suppose that a patient has just arrived at the emergency. What is the probability that the
next patient will arrive only after another 10 minutes? (2 marks)
(f) Since the arrival of a patient at the emergency, 15 minutes have passed without the arrival
of any other patient. What is the probability that another 5 minutes will pass before the
arrival of the next patient? (3 marks)
(g) It has been observed that out of the 6 patients (on average) who may arrive at the hospital
emergency in an hour – 2 patients turn out to be critical cases, 3 patients turn out to be
semi-critical cases and 1 patient turns out to be less critical case. Suppose that in the early
morning of September 10, 2020 (between 3:00 am – 5:00 am) 10 patients come to the
hospital emergency. What is the probability that out of these 10 patients, 6 cases will be
critical ones? Kindly mention the additional assumptions that you may need to answer
this question. (3 marks)
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(h) During the midnight of September 10, 2020 what is the probability that 4 semi-critical /
less critical patients will arrive at the emergency before the first critical patient gets
admitted? What is the average no of semi-critical / less critical patients who arrive before
the first critical patient gets admitted? You may use the probabilities from part (g) above.
(3 marks)
(i) Suppose the time taken by the hospital emergency to provide first hand treatment to a
critical patient is normally distributed with mean 30 minutes and variance of 64. What is
the probability that for any random critical patient it will between 20 minutes to 45 minutes
to provide the first hand treatment? (3 marks)
(j) With reference to part (i) it may be further mentioned that if the first hand treatment
duration for a patient exceeds a certain threshold, the patient needs to be put on oxygen
support. Suppose for a patient who has just arrived, there is 20% chance of being put on
oxygen support. Can you find the treatment duration threshold for which oxygen support
is required? (3 marks)
(k) Suppose the time taken to provide first hand treatment to a semi-critical patient follows
normal distribution with mean of 20 minutes and standard deviation of 6 minutes. Also the
time taken to provide first hand treatment to a less critical patient follows a normal
distribution with mean of 15 minutes and standard deviation of 4 minutes. It has been
observed that the treatment times of the different categories of critical patients are
independent of each other due to use of separate resources. What is the probability that the
first hand treatment time of any semi-critical patient is more than that of any less critical
patient? (3 marks)
(l) It has been observed by medical practitioners that co-morbidities create serious
complications among the different categories of critical patients. With reference to the
information provided in part (g) – “out of the 6 patients (on average) who may arrive at the
hospital emergency in an hour – 2 patients turn out to be critical cases, 3 patients turn out
to be semi-critical cases and 1 patient turns out to be less critical case.” Historical data
suggests that out of the critical cases 60 % have serious complications due to co-
morbidities, out of the semi-critical cases 40 % have serious complications due to co-
morbidities and out of the less critical cases 30% have serious complications due to
comorbidities. Suppose a patient admitted in the emergency develops serious
complications due to co-morbidities. What is the probability that this patient belongs to the
“critical” category? (4 marks)
(m) Suppose over a period of time 20 patients arrive at the hospital emergency. The individual
time taken (in minutes) to treat these 20 patients are as follows:
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20 32 35 32 14

30 57 28 32 44

10 29 56 59 52

50 49 20 21 30

Can you comment on the shape of the above data distribution? Explain your answer clearly
by showing all the calculations. (3 marks)