A Gage R&R Study in a Hospital

This ‘‘Quality Quandaries’’ column gives an example of a gage R&R experiment in a hospital: a study of the precision of temperature measurements with an ear thermometer. The remarkable conclusion of the experiment is that temperature measurements may be the most precise if each ear is measured once and then the maximum of the two measurements is taken as the body temperature.

The column starts with a discussion of the various aspects of the quality of measurement based on the first chapter of the thesis of Van Wieringen (2003), followed by the ear thermometer example.

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