Manufacturing Management in Hospital Operations
“Toyota,” “Lean” and “Six Sigma” are manufacturing concepts aimed at improving efficiency and quality in making inanimate products like automobiles, appliances, and many other consumer goods. Can these same concepts be applied to hospitals aimed at similar outcomes? Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University conducted a survey and answered the question in the affirmative, as though it wasn’t obvious in the first place. What this piece doesn’t say is that any efficiency and quality innovation, in any field, creates surplus value. This new value can be applied to further improve patient care (e.g. distance monitoring as a discharge follow up), or to higher pay for hospital staff, or to greater profit for non-profit providers (who then can use the value to expand market share and charge higher prices from reduced competition). Improving efficiency and quality are good things, made even better to the society with hospital price transparency. MORE