Improving efficiency, reducing waste are keys to safe, quality patient care

For years the healthcare industry has maintained that it is unlike others simply because caring for people is more complex than creating cars, shipping goods, or generating energy. However, hospitals are being forced to examine their processes this year as the healthcare reform debate continues. Healthcare has been exposed as being extremely wasteful and has not embraced simple technology that other industries adopted years ago to improve their workflows and products. In two separate stories, The Boston Globe and Business Week examine instances in which hospitals adopted new, more efficient practices and have seen positive outcomes.

The Boston Globe articletakes the case of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (CCH). The facility reached out to well known flow and efficiency expert Eugene Litvak, a professor at Boston University and Harvard University, as well as a patient flow advisor to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He was asked by CCH to help them streamline the flow of patients from the emergency department waiting room to the recovery area for patients post-surgery. Over the past six years, the facility has seen both quality and economic improvements.

The Business Week articleexamines how administrators at the Moffitt Cancer & Research Institute in Tampa, FL, used a consulting group within General Electric to help them learn how to better manage and run the facility. The facility analyzed how time in the operating rooms was being used, then scheduled surgeries in a more efficient manner. Although this disruption required some new ways of thinking, ultimately it has led to improved performance and better outcomes.

Has your hospital or healthcare facility taken the first steps into better managing its processes to produce better outcomes via more efficient care? Have you experienced any major changes to how you do your work, and if so, have they been for the better?