The article about having a sketched out process flow in hospitals, just like in factories, reminded me of the movie, Danube Hospital, one of Europe’s largest hospitals. The movie shows how its different departments, surgical procedures, workshops, equipment rooms are well-equipped with technology and how it leads to a smooth flow in the medical procedures. It portrays how people, process and technology integration is essential for activities to be smooth and seamless. The hospital follows various optimization procedures to ensure minimal and effective utilization of resources. For example, patients requiring similar equipment are placed in the same room. This facilitates easy delivery of required equipment to the right location. For delivering equipment, the hospital has replaced people with robots. This saves time and labor to a large extent. Timely refill of equipment ensures the process is not disrupted due to a wait for the fulfillment, thus reducing the patient wait time. For the delivery of equipment, the hospital has replaced people with robots. This saves time and labor to a large extent. Tight integration of process with technology helps timely refill of equipment ensuring that the medical process is not disrupted due to a wait for the fulfillment, thus reducing the patient wait time. These robots move around the hospital, following their programmed route, making sounds to indicate their presence, making it look like a high tech factory. It is really amazing to see how they handle the sterilization department of the hospital. The robots move all the unsterilized goods throughout the hospital to a section in the sterilization department. After sterilization, the equipment is organized and packed based on the requirements. These are then placed in the required elevators and received by nurses on the delivery end. However, is this tight integration with technology a boon or a bane? Can a process as critical as that in healthcare depend heavily on technology, which is not completely bug-free? How costly can an error in technology used in modern healthcare practices be?
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
When Technology disrupts Healthcare, or does it?
The article about having a sketched out process flow in hospitals, just like in factories, reminded me of the movie, Danube Hospital, one of Europe’s largest hospitals. The movie shows how its different departments, surgical procedures, workshops, equipment rooms are well-equipped with technology and how it leads to a smooth flow in the medical procedures. It portrays how people, process and technology integration is essential for activities to be smooth and seamless. The hospital follows various optimization procedures to ensure minimal and effective utilization of resources. For example, patients requiring similar equipment are placed in the same room. This facilitates easy delivery of required equipment to the right location. For delivering equipment, the hospital has replaced people with robots. This saves time and labor to a large extent. Timely refill of equipment ensures the process is not disrupted due to a wait for the fulfillment, thus reducing the patient wait time. For the delivery of equipment, the hospital has replaced people with robots. This saves time and labor to a large extent. Tight integration of process with technology helps timely refill of equipment ensuring that the medical process is not disrupted due to a wait for the fulfillment, thus reducing the patient wait time. These robots move around the hospital, following their programmed route, making sounds to indicate their presence, making it look like a high tech factory. It is really amazing to see how they handle the sterilization department of the hospital. The robots move all the unsterilized goods throughout the hospital to a section in the sterilization department. After sterilization, the equipment is organized and packed based on the requirements. These are then placed in the required elevators and received by nurses on the delivery end. However, is this tight integration with technology a boon or a bane? Can a process as critical as that in healthcare depend heavily on technology, which is not completely bug-free? How costly can an error in technology used in modern healthcare practices be?
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