Designing experiments is a key skill for health care professionals, as it helps improve care practices and patient outcomes. In this activity, you will develop a simple experiment with one independent variable (with at least two levels) and one dependent variable relevant to a health care setting. 

1. Design your experiment: Describe a scenario in health care where one could test an intervention, technique, or strategy.
2. Clearly state the independent variable (with two levels).
3. Clearly state the dependent variable.
4. Specify the level of measurement (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio) you would use to collect data.
5. Explain why this experiment is important and how the results could influence health care practices.

Initial discussion question posts should be a minimum of 200 words and cite at least two references using APA style.  

Example: 

XYZ hospital wanted to increase compliance of staff using hand sanitizer after every interaction with a patient. In order to gain compliance, they set up a buzzer when staff exited the patient’s room. For the treatment group, a buzzer would ring for 1 second after exiting the room unless staff had pressed the hand sanitizer lever. The control group did not have the buzzer activated, so no sound would emit when exiting the patient's room.

• Independent Variable: Presence of a buzzer sound or not. 
• Dependent Variable: Number of times the hand sanitizer lever was pressed. 
• Level of Measurement: Ratio 

Importance: This experiment can measure the efficacy of operant conditioning to train a behavior for better health care outcomes and decrease the spread of pathogens and disease. In a hospital setting, I observed a similar situation where the hospital was trying to increase the frequency of using hand sanitizer to maintain sanitary conditions.