I've been a businessman for more than 20 years in manufacturing environment. In my opinion, the single most examine important element to maintaining a successful businesses is the ability to minimize waste and maximize efficiency in every operation of the business. To varying degrees, the health care industry has been very slow to adapt "lean manufacturing" principles in the products and services they offer. The textbook definition of "lean" simply means the elimination of waste in the execution of a process, where waste represents any action / time that is not directly conducted in the process of delivering the product or service.
As I use the healthcare system, I immediately notice the inefficiency of the process. Starting at patient check-in and carry it through to patient discharge, it seems very few of the services performed have any efficiency built in. Why? Possibly because our system does not have a natural competitive marketplace. If you are fortunate enough to have health care, probably you are limited to a specific plan (provider, location, etc) and cannot "shop" for a better deal. So the costs for services have little emphasis placed on them, as the provider can set their price for services high enough to cover the waste. Secondly, particularly in the case of urgent care, most people (with health coverage) do not care about costs; they simply want treatment. In summary, it is mostly an unmanaged system of inefficiency, with little incentive to change.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Health Care Experience
I am posting this on behalf of my dad, who wrote this as a patient...
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Coming from a businessman’s prospective, I think it gives empathy and heart break to these people who want to offer their employers the very best in health care and simply cannot due to cost and access. This creates unnecessary burden and possible tension between employer and employee. Our nation’s poor health care system has indirect negative effects such as this. There is no competition as this author noted as in different countries (as we witnessed in the first documentary we watched). Maybe this is where the inefficiencies stem from….
ReplyDeleteI agree with what alyssa is saying and I also think that it is unfair that most employees of a certain business are not able to choose what kind of health that is right for them. in a lot of situations employees are just stuck with what their employer has to offer. In many cases certain people have more health issues and need more care than others. with whatever health care they are provided, they might not always get the care that they need.
ReplyDeleteI was also looking for help on addiction. I found an anorexia treatment programs center that really helped me out.
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