HealthCare Bottleneck Relief

In this essay, the author

• Explains that hospitals can eliminate health-care industry bottlenecks and improve efficiency, cost savings, and patient care by borrowing from production lines on the factory floor.
• Describes how li lin, ph.d., professor of industrial engineering, and his colleagues use industrial-engineering tools, including six sigma and other lean enterprise methodologies, to improve the operations and competitiveness of hospitals.
• Explains that in today's competitive environment, especially with the shortage of skilled nurses, the pressure on streamlining hospital operations continues to increase.
• Describes how lin and his colleagues use animated computer simulations based on statistical analyses to uncover bottlenecks or potential problem areas in health-care facilities.
• Analyzes how industrial engineers analyze how patients flow through hospitals while ensuring that the drive for efficiency doesn't dehumanize patient care.
• Explains how lin's computer simulations have helped the buffalo mercy hospital envision how increased patient volume will cause congestion in its surgical unit, necessitating and justifying the construction of new operating rooms.
• Describes how lin is working with mcauley-seton home care, a division of the catholic health system in buffalo, to streamline the scheduling of nurses' visits to patients' homes.
• Explains how lin tracked the number of tests that each physician in a hospital ran to diagnose and treat the same disease. industrial engineers can assist hospitals in improving their efficiency with detailed statistical analysis.
• Opines that while lin characterized the collection and review of such data as "very delicate," it serves as an important starting point for hospitals to find ways to cut costs and for physicians to begin sharing information on the optimal tests to run for each disease.
• Describes how lin and his team develop computer animations that visually display a hospital's statistical capacity to handle patients in terms of beds, operating rooms, pre- and post-operation facilities and staff.
• Explains that lin is beginning discussions on how to tackle what is likely the least efficient part of any hospital -- the emergency room.