Improving Flow in Hospitals

D.Van Goubergen

Associate Professor–Free University (VU) Amsterdam, NL

3 Nov 2022, 12:00 PM, Room 206& via zoom

Abstract:

Nowadays the patient experience in a hospital is not only determined by the ‘quality’ of the interaction with the hospital staff nor of the treatment itself.

The way how hospitals are organized in functions and departments and their focus on resource efficiency, does not result automatically in smooth flowing care pathways or value streams. On the contrary, a patient spends more time in waiting areas and holding rooms than being treated, which can be frustrating. For the hospital this means more effort managing queues but also investing in (large) waiting areas. Improving flow will result in an important win-win: reducing the time spent in a hospital by patients, smaller waiting areas and more space for value added activities, but also improved throughput.

In this seminar a structured approach for designing healthcare value streams for better flow will be presented and illustrated with examples. This design method does not just focus on eliminating waste in the activities but also on the (re) design of the connections between the activities.