I was talking to a client the other day and he was frustrated at the inefficiencies in healthcare workflows. He told me that he worked for U.P.S. before and they had very set methods for each process. So my mental rolodex started going through all the possible acronyms for UPS; University Physician Services, University of Puget Sound , etc. Finally he said UPS, as in the mail delivery service.
I was struck with the fact that there was not a magical academic medical center out there that was doing everything right and that whoever hired this person was very smart. They managed to bring in someone that was not hampered with a set “healthcare” way of doing things and is asking all the right questions. If you look at a charge ticket as if it was a box headed to grandma’s house, we would have a 20% chance it will not get there on time or get lost on the way.
So are we getting jaded by working in a system with “built-in” inefficiencies or have we come to accept the status quo as an operating costs and move on to other issues?
