It feels like it doesn’t matter where you go, health systems are struggling. In the US, just about any procedure is super expensive. In the UK and Australia, waiting lists extend far into the future and patients are left sitting in ambulances as hospitals lack capacity. In France, staff shortages rage furiously, frustrating operations.
It might seem like hope is fruitless and there is little that can be done. But amidst this horrid backdrop, one London hospital is finding some serious gains with some neat optimizations to the way it handles surgery, as The Times reports.
Keep ‘Em Moving
The new innovative model is the brainchild of Imram Ahmad and Kariem El-Boghdadly, a pair of consultant anesthetists working at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The latter compares the surgery setup to the way motorsport pit crews slash the time of a pit stop, by effectively splitting up tasks and designating their completion to certain individuals. For example, a Formula 1 team doesn’t change one tire at a time. Instead, 12 crew members change four tires at once—usually in less than 3 seconds.
Surgeons often sit idle while waiting for patients to be prepped for surgery. If you’ve ever worked in manufacturing optimization, you’ll know that eliminating idle time nets huge benefits. Credit: Olga Guryanova, Unsplash license
The duo’s trick to speeding up surgery is similarly down to parallelizing operations. It involves setting up two operating theatres side by side. While surgeons are operating on one patient, another is being prepped in the second theatre.
When they complete one proce ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
