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Lean Thinking in Healthcare
Edited by Nilmini Wickramasinghe, Latif Al-Hakim, Chris Gonzalez and Joseph Tan
INTRODUCTION
Lean thinking aims to substantially smooth flows and drastically reduce waste and process variations. The application of lean requires looking to the system as “sociotechnical” system in which human factor engineering and technology plays the central role. The ‘sociotechnical’ aspect of lean production has been enhanced through introducing five principles (i.e., value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection) within which the customer value and waste reduction are the cores of the lean system. Literature emphasises that lean thinking provides four main benefits; improved quality and safety, improved delivery, improved throughput – the same resources with higher efficiency, and accelerating momentum – A stable working environment with clear, standardised procedures creates the foundations for constant improvement.
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5 January 2012 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog, News
Previous Entries
RFID is quickly becoming a household subject in today’s technological world. You can’t seem to go anywhere without running into some form of it. Whether it is re-branded as NFC (Near Field Communication) as with the Google Wallet, passive RFID tags such as those used in many libraries, or active RFID tags being used for intruder resistant doggy doors, we are seeing more and more RFID technology in our everyday lives.
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28 October 2011 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
As our regular visitors know, the ICMCC News Page provides you with recent news on Health Information Technology. And with an average of more than 2,500 unique visitors per day from over 150 countries the News Page is one of the best viewed news sources. So we provide a preview from and links to work from others. And we rarely comment. And if we do so, our blog is used.
Today I came across an article that made me somewhat uneasy. It happens sometimes when numbers are involved (see this reaction from 2 years ago).
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20 October 2011 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
Dr. Amir Hannan is GP in the UK and one of the first who started giving his patients full access to their medical records. During the ICMCC Event 2007 he presented the concept of a “Partnership of Trust“. He published about his work, links to those articles are here. I am proud to present some of his recent thoughts and experiences in his Haughton Thornley Medical Centres practice.
Lodewijk Bos
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9 August 2011 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
What made me so jubilant in my previous post about the fact that the NLM launched MedlinePlus Connect? A remark from my friend @epatientdave, the observation of various other news items covering the launch as well as Prof Sarkar’s blog post made me realize that I should spend some more words on it.
Standards and ontologies are recognized as the key elements for interoperability and health information exchange. Standards are seen as a tool for physicians in their use of EHRs:
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24 June 2011 | 1 Comment »
Categories: Blog
Make my day!!
MedlinePlus brings together information from NIH, other federal agencies, and reputable health information providers. MedlinePlus covers a wide range of health conditions and wellness issues, and includes key resources to inform patients about their health.
MedlinePlus Connect accepts the coding standards already in the organization’s system, such as ICD-9-CM, SNOMED CT CORE Problem List Subset, RxNorm, NDC, and LOINC.
National Library of Medicine launches MedlinePlus Connect, 20 June 2011
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21 June 2011 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
When the Dutch started creating an EHR over a decade and a half ago, primary care providers soon saw the benefits of electronic records over paper ones, resulting in the Netherlands having one of the highest adoption rated worldwide amongst PCPs. However, they did not consider the patient as en essential part of the stakeholders. So after years they had to reconsider the system to allow the patient access to their record. A major oversight.
To us at ICMCC one of the essential parts of patient’s record access is the fact that the patient can actively control the content. Already in 2007, when we created our guideline on Patient Record Access to the WHO, this was one of the clearly stated points. It is primordial that they will be able to input their information, but also, very importantly, that they can request changes and corrections. Or at least put their version of a consultation against the physician’s.
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14 June 2011 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
Articles are appearing about the necessity of EHRs in disaster situations like Japan. And of course, they are right when mentioning the fact that having digital records might immensely help chronically diseased and elderly being able to continue their proper care. This is all based on the fact that a major disaster destroys paper records.
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25 March 2011 | 2 Comments »
Categories: Blog
Over the last couple of years there have been a couple of issues I have been repeating time and again. Two articles this week showed that my emphasis and endurance were correct. As there are too many to quote here, you can run through my speeches or my blogs if you want to read my past statements.
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23 July 2010 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
At the ICMCC website we try to give space to people who have a clear opinion or vision on health information technology and might help to enhance discussions in the area of compunetics. Today I am happy to present a writing by Michael L. Popovich, CEO of STC and V-P of ICMCC. Mike and his company have a long history of involvement in public health, be it disease surveillance, the SARS crisis in Hong Kong, or immunization records; STC presented recently an iPhone app named MyIR™. (Lodewijk Bos).
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7 July 2010 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
On July 2 we welcomed the 65,000th visitor on the ICMCC website, that is, in 2010!!! And on July 3 we will pass the 4,500,000 hits, also just this year. I would like to thank all our visitors, you make the work worth while. And apparently you think so too, as this year’s average shows that 40% of you come back (slowly going up, in June it was 45%), you stay almost 19 minutes per visit and you are coming from ever more countries, 150+ (up from 110+ in January)!!! We add an average of 15-20 articles per day, every article being tagged appropriately. Want to know what has been published on the developments in Spain? Click the “Spain” in “Countries”. Or articles on “ICD-10“. Of course we offer an overview of all tags, countries or national EHR related articles.
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3 July 2010 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
I’m preparing the President’s address for the upcoming ICMCC annual event, next week in London. Today it is 6 years ago we closed our very first event and decided to create our foundation, not knowing what, 6 years later, the consequence would be. The annual events, and the proceedings going with it, have become important scientific gatherings related to patient empowerment, with a strong emphasis on standards and digital homecare. And we are very grateful that next week we have Peter Waegemann as keynote speaker, informing us about the latest developments in mHealth and the effects on patients.
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4 June 2010 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
Time flies. During the last couple of years the word e-patient has become very common amongst people advertising Health 2.0. On 10 May I was invited for a tweet up (in French) by Denise Silber. I was announced as e-patient. Not as ICMCC president, but as e-patient. Friends of mine told me last week they are doing a study into the definition of the word. And Susannah Fox published a blog yesterday with questions about e-patients. And to be honest, I was thinking about writing about this phenomena for a while already. But my condition keeps me from research and writing unless it really bursts out, like now.
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12 May 2010 | 7 Comments »
Categories: Blog
Paul Roemer, who had a contribution on the ICMCC blog on April 30, which was viewed more than 600 times, produced another great article on his blog, this time about the business model of hospitals:
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4 May 2010 | 10 Comments »
Categories: Blog
At the ICMCC website we try to give space to people who have a clear opinion or vision on health information technology and might help to enhance discussions in the area of compunetics. Today I am happy to present a writing by Paul Roemer, which struck me by its magnificent vision on what the future of EHR might bring. It is not necessarily my point of view. I think that there might and should be a discussion about portability. And it is most definitely a US view on things. But the core of the concept might be applicable universally, as is happening with the iPhone.
There still is the issue of how to make users aware of the value and necessity of an EHR, and how it will enhance patient participation, even more so if the below model will become reality. That’s why ICMCC announced GHITA and hopes to bring all stakeholders together. (Lodewijk Bos)
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30 April 2010 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
This week was the first European version of the Health 2.0 conference. And there seem to be quite some misconceptions about the state-of-the-art on Health 2.0 in Europe.
Unfortunately there is little outcome yet, like blogs, reports etc. There is an overview of all the tweets made during the event and Denise Silber, organizer of the event, gives 2 links on her English blog, 6 however on the French version. And The Health Care Blog, home of the originators of the event, has only 2 posts so far (i.e. 10 April), on Day 1 (not much more than a picture) and the opening video.
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10 April 2010 | 3 Comments »
Categories: Blog
I have been very outspoken in the past and still am about PHRs.
A PHR is an American invention that IMHO serves no purpose whatsoever. It only brings lots more work (especially for the patient), will by definition double everything as every piece of information will be stored at least in 2 locations, the EMR/EHR and the PHR and unless you create new legislation a PHR will never become a “serious” document, as there will be no guarantee that it contains all available information.
Observations 17 December 2009: Patient Data Again, Lodewijk Bos, ICMCC Blog, 17 September 2009
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26 March 2010 | 3 Comments »
Categories: Blog
Famous last words? It was said by Ilias Iakovidis during the European Barcelona meeting WoHIT. It was the same event where HIMSS announced that they are definitely getting into Europe. I know, it is not fair and not scientific to combine these two things, but what is happening in Barcelona has me seriously worried.
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21 March 2010 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
We thought it would be all over. And as was published today, it isn’t, we still dump paper medical records. We thought we would stop loosing records in the mail or grabbing the wrong pile of documents. Not so. There are still many, too many places where records are kept physically, on paper, in cupboards.
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22 February 2010 | No Comments »
Categories: Blog
