Collaboration, execution efficiency, and Enterprise 2.0 in Healthcare

A lot of my work has been involved with manufacturing type firms, but a recent series of healthcare related activities has got me rather interested in the ideas of process change within healthcare. From optimizing doctor’s offices to treating people as customers, I am now joining others in an attempt to use systems engineering methods along with principles of the Toyota Way to alter standards and practices throughout the healthcare industry.

 

Healthcare finds itself operating in an environment that mostly hasn’t changed in decades. When healthcare is benchmarked against other industries and tests conducted in applying lean techniques to processes, it is discovered that most all techniques and methods used in applying systems engineering, lean execution, demand and supply side management, etc. are applicable to problem resolution in healthcare.

 

If we follow the thread that has been woven in other industries and project this into healthcare, it becomes apparent that healthcare will be leveraging the lessons learned in other fields. This path started by breaking down isolated work space, introduced integrated work activities, and then moved on to collaboration and sharing, and eventually to knowledge sharing. Activities along this path also moved the focus squarely towards the customer.  

 

Healthcare is beginning to change and one major movement is in managing patient flow following concept of industrial engineering applied within manufacturing plants. In the eyes of many the path is clear. It will basically follow fundamental changes in work methods that have occurred in many other fields. The path will ultimately lead to integration of work processes with the customer in the middle.

 

One question that arises is at what time will collaboration begin to be introduced as an execution strategy?  A few leading hospital leaders are taking advantage of Enterprise2.0, mostly blogging. But an interesting challenge that they will face will be how they may benefit from emergent collaboration.

Comments

[Daria]

Kevin,
Thanks for the great post, Andrew Filev, the author of Project Management 2.0 (http://www.wrike.com/projectmanagement) is working on a post about Enterprise 2.0 in different spheres and industries. I'll point him to your blog.

[Kevin]

Hmmm ... I've looked at your application and it looks interesting. I consulted at Ford Motor and introduced eRoom collaboration in which we tied a lot of information together along flow networks. V7 of eRoom provided project management and we took advantage of it and linked tasks to the content (discussion, meetings results, etc) supporting the task, ... we did not tie in emails. Collaboration around PM is important.

That said, I have a view that as Enterprise 2.0 progresses and its principles are understood, more of the program manager role will be integrated with the work task. That is, fulfillment will be self regulated by the person performing the work. This is particularly true in companies that have iterating type product development projects. I believe this idea is very early in development, but is consistent with the leading concepts of lean product control in factories. The fundamental change will be one in which the process shifts from a pull by the PM to a push by the product developer supported by automated in-process control checks.

Lots to consider as Enterpise2.0 gains traction.