Highlights from the History of Industrial Engineering and Healthcare: Part 1

Wanted to share a link to an article I wrote recently for the Society for Health Systems newsletter.

The article begins:

For those who are new to the fields of industrial engineering or management engineering (as the field is often called in health care), the use of engineering methods may seem like a recent innovation in health care settings. The recent rise in the popularity of lean and Six Sigma in hospitals around the world has brought an influx of engineers into health care.

While there is a lot of innovative work taking place, it is important to note that there is a rich history of industrial engineering principles that reaches back over 100 years being applied in health care. In this article, we will look at two early practitioners– Frank Gilbreth and Henry Ford.

For the rest of the piece, click the link at the top of this post.

About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “lean healthcare” methodology, focused on improving quality and patient safety, improving access, reducing costs, and fully engaging healthcare professionals. He is also the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus.

Tagged as: Ford, Gilbreth, Healthcare