Doctor's Advice: Have Your Heart Attack During Normal Business Hours
Now this is sad, maybe it's not surprising. A study has shown that a heart attack patient will get worse care outside of normal “business hours”. Any hospital that is the least bit customer focused would hopefully realize that people aren't going to have heart attacks on a convenient schedule (although people do have more heart attacks on Mondays, the stress of starting the work week).
In any process, you have to look at your demand patterns and plan your capacity according, doctors and support processes both. Since the healthcare world is starting to adopt lean practices, I'd hope they start looking at providing consistent service at all times, it's only fair and humane.
Is this the medical equivalent to the old joke about not buying a car that's built in the first week of hunting season? Cars should be the same quality regardless of when you buy them, right? Wow, I'd hope we could get the same medical care regardless of when we have a heart attack.
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Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker who has worked in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. His latest book is Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More. He is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, as well as The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. He also published the anthology Practicing Lean that benefits the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation, where Mark is a board member. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.
I lost both my parents because of heart attack in non business hours and I know the pain of that.
My mother got an attack in the mid-night and my father during Sunday.
Hope doctors and hospitals understand our pain and will take appropriate measure to solve this problem.