Question: 150

Active management of labor (AML) is a group for interventions designed to help reduce the length of labor and the rate of cesarean deliveries. Physicians from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center were interested in determining whether AML would also translate into a reduced cost for delivery. The results if their study can be found in Rogers et al., “Active Management of Labor: A Cost Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial” (Western Journal of Medicine, Vol. 172, pp. 240-243). According to the article, 200 AML deliveries had a mean cost of $2480 with a standard deviation of $766. At the time of the study, the average cost of having a baby in a U.S. hospital was $2528. At the 5% significance level, do the data provide sufficient evidence to conclude that, on average, AML reduces the cost of having a baby in a U.S. hospital?