Healthcare providers can decrease costs and increase quality by focusing on control and management of Interfaces, Interactions, Interruptions and Integration. By operating within this strategic 4i framework, healthcare providers can increase patient safety, more effectively manage patient flow, and achieve efficient operations.
4i Framework offers a simple view
Work is generally a set of tasks that are linked together to produce a product or provide a service. Skilled healthcare professionals are well educated to complete tasks effectively, but value in completes tasks is often lost when the interface to a connected task breaks down or is ineffective. Interface management has been at the root of quality improvement in many other industries. Weak control of healthcare processes results in interruptions, which in turn lead to decreases in overall productivity and quality, as well as increases in unintended errors leading to unsatisfactory patient safety. Areas of high complexity, defined by a significant number of interfaces and interactions, are often sites in which problems occur. Intense integration, along with simplification, is required to control complex operations. Documents are prominent artifacts exchanged during interactions and are used to move value within an integrated process. Thus, management and control of documents can provide leverage, as well as the means to achieve improved integration, effective interactions and more value exchange at interfaces.
