Health care quality improvement in the emergency department: a reengineering approach

Most health care organization processes can be compared with those in typical engineering, manufacturing, and service businesses, and improvement can be achieved in health care by means of many of the tools that are commonly found in non-health care industries. In fact, it may prove beneficial for health care organizations to consider obtaining help from professionals outside health care because such individuals probably will not have preconceived ideas about process improvement in such organizations. The article provides a success story in a health care process improvement effort that was undertaken by engineers in a large Los Angeles regional hospital in 1993. It discusses specific steps that were taken to obtain and synthesize data, achieve employee and management buy-in, analyze processes for strengths and improvement opportunities, assess customer satisfaction, implement changes, and measure results.