How long do patients wait?

This week’s The Numbers Guy column in the Wall Street Journal looks at how long patients wait for care (Long Medical Waits Prove Hard to Cure, May 25). The setting to have in mind is not how many minutes past your appointment time you spend in the waiting room. Rather, focus on actually getting an [...]

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Should health care practices be standardized?

One of the things I like about my undergrad alumni magazine is the classified ads. There is always something eye-catching. Like this one that was listed under “Employment Opportunities.” Family Medical Coordinator: Highly intelligent, unusually competent individual with a background in science and exceptional communication skills sought by Manhattan family to research and coordinate family medical [...]

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Paying when patients wait

The Daily had an interesting story on a handful of doctors who are paying their patients — either explicitly in cash or in the form of a gift — when they make their patients wait past their appointment times (Their Wait in Gold, Mar 19). There’s a promising new trend afoot in doctors’ offices around [...]

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Preventing problems in health care

Much has been written about applying operations management techniques — many developed in manufacturing environments — to health care settings. Indeed, this has been a regular topic in this blog. One thing that has been missing from this discussion has been a view of preventing errors through better design. When making things, the argument goes [...]

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White collar automation

Slate’s technology writer Farhad Manjoo has had an interesting series of article on the increasing use of robots and automation in what many would consider white-collar profession. Despite the somewhat alarmist title (Will Robots Steal Your Job?), the series is a fairly evenhanded look at how technology is evolving. I found the piece on pharmacists particularly interesting (My [...]

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Perverse incentives in managing hospital queues (updated)

Here’s an interesting story from the BBC showing how incentives can lead to odd choices in managing queues (Royal Cornwall Hospital patients ‘jumping waiting list’, Aug 27). Up to 670 people had been waiting for more than the government waiting time target, of 18 weeks, the hospital said. It explained it was treating the newer [...]

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Keeping people from leaving the ER

Checkout this graphic from a recent Wall Street Journal article (ERs Move to Speed Care; Not Everyone Needs a Bed, Aug 2): This is based on a survey of people who left ERs without being seen and breaks down how long they waited before bolting. The number of people who leave without being seen has been [...]

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OM meets healthcare

We haven’t written anything on applying OM principles to healthcare recently so here are two quick stories. The first is from Colorado. Denver Health is an  integrated healthcare system that serves many uninsured patients. It also has the lowest mortality rate of any academic medical center in the country and was the first healthcare provider to win the [...]

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Better emergency rooms

Hospitals present a host of operational challenges. Patients arrive with a variety of ailments and the mix of work changes by the day or even by the hour. Resources are always limited and time can be of the essence. This is especially true in the emergency room. Sure there are challenges up in, say, the [...]

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Managing capacity of itensive care units

Managing “patient flow” is one of the most challenging aspects of running any health care facility. Whether in a hospital or a clinic, there is a limited supply of resources but a seemingly unlimited supply of patients at least some of whom need care desperately. Managing capacity is then a critical issue. No where is [...]

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