I want to bring readers’ attention to a well-written book that has implications for all of us who are passionate about collaboration, Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow, by Jensen, Mayer, Welch, and Haraden; Health Administration Press, (http://www.ache.org/pubs/redesign/productcatalog.cfm?pc=WWW1-2073. Also available at  http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Smooth-Patient-Flow-Jensen/dp/1567932657/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203717356&sr=8-1.)
The authors discuss six dimensions of flow:

Efficiency:

it is not just the quantity of time, but also [...]

Mauteen Bisognano and James Conway have written a great book, 10 Powerful Ideas for Improving Patient Care: Book 4. Chicago . Health Administration Press. 2008.
The chapter that I particularly enjoyed was “Use Patient Navigation,” where they cited the work of an oncologic surgeon, Dr. Harold Freeman, with patient navigators at Harlem Hospital.  Patient navigators are [...]

Maggie Mahar provided readers with a valuable service in “How Much Do We Really Know About Canadian Healthcare?“, a post from Sara Robinson, a dual citizen of Canada and the US with first-hand information about both systems.  Her post is a great example of policy analysis from the ground up.  Sara points out that the [...]

It seemed like such an easy task that day on rounds.  I was a first-year surgical resident asked to remove a central venous catheter that was no longer necessary for monitoring.  No one asked whether I had slept the previous night on call (I hadn’t); this was a task that could be performed at a [...]

I encourage you to read Jeanne Bliss’s post, The State of Customer “Focus” Around the World: 2007 in Review, in which she talks about ways to deliver a better experience for users of our services.  Although her comments arise from observations about other industries, they seem applicable to healthcare:
“The struggle still remains to connect the [...]