Optimizing Healthcare Operations: A Guide to Management Theory

To meet health care challenges, health care organizations can apply operations management theory to build new efficiencies into daily patient processing and care.

Identification

• Operations management theory in health care refers to the application of mathematical and statistical tools to predict, forecast and solve management and business processing problems in a health care environment.

Application

• An example is the application of queuing theory and critical path analysis to optimize emergency room patient processing. This is where analysts evaluate and analyze emergency room wait-time data to determine the optimal path or process to reduce emergency room wait times and overall service.

Benefits

• Health care organizations who apply these theories can possibly reduce bottlenecks, wait times, reduce staff overtime and improve overall patient care.