Production planning has historically had a bad connotation in Health. People don’t like that they might be thought of as widgets in a production line.
This perception barrier has come about as a result of successful practices in outside sectors being increasingly applied within health. An example of this is the lean environment that started at Toyota.
But the reality is, with increasing population growth, new advances in health, staff shortages and the need to keep a lid on health expenditure, most public healthcare organisations are constantly battling to meet and manage patient demand. We need to look at things in different ways in order to solve this challenge!
To understand this demand and plan for it with resources and staffing, hospitals need a tool that can forecast and plan for demand so that they can best service their customers safely.
From my experience as a hospital manager, we used to do substantial planning for each unit, such as theatre and beds. But because these areas were often planned independent of one another, the plans were not connected.
This disconnect would cause a lot of problems for the hospital. For example, a single change in theatre could have a major flow impact on bed requirements. Good production planning therefore is about planning the throughput, and you need tools to do this.
CapPlan is a tool that enables healthcare organisations to plan production from the high level right down to the day to day detail. Its real power is enabling hospitals to manage and deliver the master plan on an ongoing basis.
Nick Burns Sales & Marketing Director, Emendo