Hardwiring hospital-wide flow to drive sustainable competitive performance

Abstract

Healthcare leadership requires the ability to become a high-quality, low-cost provider by doing more with less in an increasingly capacity-constrained environment. One of the most powerful tools to accomplish this is hardwiring hospital-wide flow. Flow is adding value to, and reducing or eliminating waste in, processes, services or behaviours, by increasing benefits, decreasing burdens — or both — as patients move through the service transitions and queues of healthcare. Applied as a discipline, flow assures that the right resources are provided to the right patient in the right environment for the right reasons at the right time — every time. The tools of patient flow include the disciplines of demand-capacity management, identifying and eliminating bottlenecks and constraints, intelligent and strategic bed management, and applying the science of service operations. Accelerating flow into, through and out of the hospital should be applied from the emergency department, through hospital-wide flow, as well as in surgery and anaesthesia. Doing so provides substantial financial and operational results.