Engineering Solutions

Engineering Solutions to America’s Healthcare Challenges, by Ryan Burge, CRC Press 2014 

What tools do engineers bring to healthcare providers and patients that they need?  Author Ryan Burge believes that industrial engineering practices that are shaping healthcare and systems thinking must be the foundation.  Using case examples drawn from IT, award-winning institutions,  and actual patient care, Engineering Solutions illustrates application of engineering tools for analysis and improvement.    

*Six Sigma, for example, although not covered in detail, is covered as a continuous improvement requirement at Valley Baptist, an institution awarded the Baldrige Award in 2006. 

*  DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control

Using the example of the Carilion Clinic, a 600 physician multi-specialty group practice plus 8 non-profit hospitals, Burge lays out executive leadership’s recommendations for using DMAIC as an institution-wide methodology.  Quoting Paul O’Quinn, Carilion’s performance improvement consultant, “For some projects, the tools and techniques may be as simple as a tally sheet, a Pareto chart, and a cause-and-effect diagram… Complex projects may require the more complex tools and techniques of Six Sigma, such a logistic regression, analysis of variance, and design of experiments (DOE).” 

At less than 150 pages Engineering Solutions is a quick read, a great discussion piece, and  an introduction to the issues and challenges at hand in healthcare.  Team leaders and team members may want to read more detailed explanations of various statistical methods elsewhere.  The discussion of IT and reimbursement challenges points out the need for even more systems engineering expertise, like the kind that could have been applied to the problematic US healthcare website. 

The Mill Girl Verdict – use this short book as a kickstarter for project planning and priority sequencing; supplement it with training – videos, reference books – for specific engineering tools.