Is process flow fix going to fix healthcare?
By Thomas Day
Every now and then you have to scratch your head and wonder who’s the editorial watchdog at the Boston Globe. According to this article, just fixing a hospital’s process flow magically solves the major problems of healthcare! Ok, here’s how we know that: Let’s pick a place (ED) where a random number of people with random illnesses enter a hospital, and where wait times are complex, and we’ll improve that flow. We’ll extrapolate by suggesting this is a new and largely untried idea and multiply it by huge numbers in favor of the process flow solution. Then we can say: “ Voila! Mission accomplished! Hooray! We can pay for our new healthcare for all.”
Well, maybe not. This fix still won’t address the fact that large provider systems such as Partners Healthcare monopolize price negotiations with their insurance plans. Nor will it make hospital-acquired infections disappear, insure that drug pricing is fair and rational, render tort reform unnecessary, suddenly cover the uninsured, or minimize the fact that some hospitals need to account for as many as 650 different insurance plans. Nor will it stop the legions of bacteria, such as MRSA, in their relentless march towards total antibiotic resistance.
It will make the ED move quicker, however, and of course that isn’t a bad idea, but really now….
Thomas Day is president of HMC.
