Title: Managing variation through system redesign

Authors: Paul Walley

Addresses: Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK

Abstract: Previous studies of reengineering in healthcare have identified a lack of process standardisation and inherent process variability as barriers to successful redesign. Some regard healthcare as unsuitable for a process redesign approach. The pilot studies and longitudinal case study presented here demonstrate that process stability can be achieved using a reengineering approach and that this can help reduce patient journey times and the variation in flow times. Furthermore, a cellular approach to process streaming did not create process stability at the expense of system flexibility. The process-based view that was introduced by the redesign activity was seen to be extremely valuable because of the way in which it helped to define patient flows.

Keywords: healthcare processes; variation management; process redesign; healthcare management; healthcare reengineering; patient journey times; flow times; process streaming; system flexibility; patient flows.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHTM.2007.014192

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 2007 Vol.8 No.6, pp.589 - 602

Published online: 25 Jun 2007 *

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