6 strategies hospitals should steal from the airline industry

Conclusion:
Although air traffic flow is simpler and easier to manage than healthcare, the industry can offer many lessons that will enable us to treat patient flow systemically as a 24/7, inpatient/outpatient, continuous operation that requires continuous management and oversight to standardize processes, exploit bottle-necks, manage random variation and eliminate non-random variation. By doing so, we can reduce costs, improve quality/safety/service and successfully compete globally for high quality-low costs services.
Jonathan H. Burroughs, MD, MBA, FACHE, FACPE is a certified physician executive and a fellow of the American College of Physician Executives and the American College of Healthcare Executives. He also is president and CEO of The Burroughs Healthcare Consulting Network.

Source: hospital impact - September 19, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs