Watching the tennis matches at Wimbledon over the last couple of weeks has inspired me to try and play a bit more often in order to improve my erratic, “weekend-warrior” level of play. The challenge is in reserving a tennis court at a convenient time — early mornings or evenings during the weekend when it… Read More
In a previous article, I talked about how higher “velocity” contributes to greater efficiencies in a healthcare operations setting. The key to increasing velocity is to focus on minimizing the non value-added time before attempting to improve the value-added time. It’s a bit like the video game Tetris. Almost every asset, machine or human, in… Read More
The notion of improving operational efficiency is conspicuously absent from the healthcare debate — neither Obamacare nor the newly proposed GOP plan discusses the impact that a step-function improvement in efficiency could have on access to healthcare (through more capacity), quality of healthcare services (through reduced wait times for patients) or cost (through better utilization… Read More
I think we can safely add “travel agent” to the list of anachronisms that have gradually receded from our collective consciousness. Along with pay phones, and at some point in the future, brick-and-mortar retail stores. One needn’t look far to see the humble travel agent’s replacement: hundreds of websites and mobile applications from which one… Read More
A recent RNnetwork survey found half of the nurses they surveyed (49.8 percent) have contemplated switching professions, with 27 percent citing overwork as the reason. In his analysis of this data (as reported by Kelly Gooch on Becker’s Hospital Review), RNnetwork President Eric Darienzo offered six ways healthcare organizations can create a nurse-friendly culture including… Read More
If you’re of a certain age, you remember Tetris, a tile-matching puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Russian game designer Alexey Pajitnov. Back in 1984 – before “viral” anything was a thing – millions of people became obsessed (addicted?) to this simple game, which challenged players to stack blocks of different shapes and… Read More
Excellent service processes are fast processes — this is the universal truth of service operations. Just as the water level in the bay hides the rocks from visibility, high levels of inventory mask underlying problems in manufacturing or logistics. Extending the analogy to service, long process times mask all kinds of service inefficiencies, such as… Read More
Among today’s biggest trends are EHRs and business intelligence. We’re investing millions of dollars creating “data engines” that track patients throughout the continuum of care. In many ways it’s similar to the internet in its infancy — we’re building a foundational layer that will transform how we deliver care and, over the next decade, care… Read More
It seems as if news about another hospital laying off workers–or worse, closing–hits the news everyday; at last count 21 hospitals stopped treating patients in 2016. Hospitals and healthcare systems across the country, including some of the largest, laid off thousands of employees. In November 2016 alone, 13 providers eliminated more than 1,000 jobs. In September,… Read More
While reimbursement requirements are a major driver of this focus, reducing LOS can also decrease the number of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs), which are subject to payment reductions of their own. Efforts to reduce LOS have led to a flurry of research into factors that impact LOS and how to address them. Due to the diversity… Read More