McDonald’s medicine it’s called: patients in the US want their health care like their food–served up speedily and made “your way”. ” The prospect of
We have blogged about waiting for medical care earlier and it’s clear that convenience has become an important part of the way people think. CVS drug stores offer walk-in “Minute Clinics”, many ERs have billboards advertising guaranteed wait times (offering free movie tickets if they run longer), while other hospitals have even experimented with drive-thru ERs!
The real question is whether it is feasible to implement a reasonable waiting time for “urgent” conditions—like heart attacks, strokes, and lung infections. The good news is that convenient care clinics do a good job of handling coughs, colds, a swollen knee, and even a nagging hernia that hurts a bit more than usual today. But the root problem may be that the current system of medical care is not set up to triage acute health needs.
This is where OM can help. So many of the issues tied to creating more efficient heath care can be tackled by re-engineering, process analysis, layout changes, JIT, lean,and all the other topics we teach in OM. You can click on Mark Graban’s Lean Blog to see his excellent discussions.
Discussion questions:
1. Why do we need to reorganize ER treatment centers?
2. What is the difference between “severity” and “urgency” in selecting a treatment?
3. How can OM help shorten ER queues?