Laverne General Hospital: Process Improvement in the Operating Room |
|
|
|
Intermediate |
24 |
Not Available.
|
$9.00
Sign in to find out if you are eligible for an Academic Price of $5.00
|
|
|
|
|
Matthew Yonson, CEO of Laverne General Hospital (LGH),
had finished up the last of his fiscal year-end management evaluations,
along with his recommendations to the Board for merit increases and
bonuses. He had a strong team in place and was more than pleased with
this year’s performance, particularly in the operating room. The
processes and profitability of the OR had improved dramatically since
Sheila Yardley had taken over as OR manager in the fall of 2000: from
55% OR capacity utilization and no contribution to 85% and $15 million
in 2002-2003. The new OR management system, PeriOptimum, provided the
data Ms. Yardley needed to manage flows and physicians and Mr. Yonson
could see the difference in his own office: it had been fully three
years since he’d gotten an irate call from a surgeon complaining about
OR problems, a big change from the several calls a week he used to
receive.
The OR had certainly benefited from the information provided by
PeriOptimum. Mr. Yonson wondered whether it made sense to implement
their system in the cardiac cath lab and the Emergency Room as well.
In the near future, at least, he didn’t see much value from PeriOptimum
on the medical services: there were too many outside factors that
affected patient flows on the medical units and there wasn’t likely to
be as much bang for the buck.
Mr. Yonson also wondered about next steps in the OR. Improved
performance had brought more surgical business. The surgeons liked
operating in an efficient environment because it made them more
efficient – they could either do more cases in a day or they could get
back to their offices more quickly to see patients. But with unused OR
capacity in other Laverne Hospitals, LGH couldn’t take surgical
business for granted. Despite the dramatic improvement, Mr. Yonson
knew there was more to be done and looked forward to hearing from Ms.
Yardley about her plans for the next fiscal year.
|
|
|
|