Executive summary article and deadline questions

¶ … healthcare costs which are causing hospital a great deal of financial pain while also hurting patients in terms of higher bills. We need to understand that if an industry knows that its maintenance costs a lot, it will obviously pass on some of those expenses to its customers. The same is being done in healthcare industry and this is primarily because the cost of running and maintaining operations in a healthcare industry is very high in the U.S. The article talks about a research that is being carried out by a university and that seeks to find out if cost reduction methods used by other industries can be replicated in hospitals and other medical facilities as well. This is an important issue and the article is written to highlight the problem of higher maintenance costs in this industry and the fact that much of these costs can be avoided with efficient use of cost reduction strategies. One such strategy would be over-booking of patients just like over-booking of airline flights so as to avoid the loss incurred due to no-shows.

The problem of higher costs can be effectively reduced by the help of tools and strategies used in other industries. But because each industry has its own problems and its own unique way of operating, these strategies need to be adapted to their unique situation. Some of these strategies would include over-booking of patients so no-shows won't cause serious losses, use of a checklist to avoid patient harm, efficient and effective use of resources so that no resources are wasted, better scheduling techniques so employees do not have too much idle time because idle time means inefficient use of resources which only increase costs. These are some of the strategies that article cites for reducing the problem of wasted resources, high costs of maintenance and running operations and losses incurred due to waits, delays, no-shows etc.

Healthcare industry is a very important industry and it is currently a $2.3 trillion field. But this industry is riddled with numerous problems which often lead to protests from patients and other groups as people complain about high medical bills and failure of insurance coverage etc. But the issue is that healthcare is expensive not on purpose but because the industry actually needs a lot of investment to keep running smoothly. However the problem arises when we discover that the high cost of running operations could have been avoided with efficient use of resources etc. For this reason the Northeastern University in Texas is conducting a research to see if cost reduction methods used by other industries can be utilized in healthcare industry as well. These would include such strategies as over-booking of patients because no-shows are a serious issue and a major cause of losses incurred by doctors and hospitals. For this reason, hospitals could over-book patients on a single day and then cater to each on first come first serve basis so it will not waste time waiting for a specific patient. I believe these solutions could work since they tend to work for other industries very well.