The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare: Improving Patient Care Using Toyota-Based Methods

Business and technical writer Grunden describes how health care systems can adopt industrial techniques to make healthcare safer, more efficient and less costly. She uses a number of case studies describing how Toyota-based methods and tools work in a health care environment, describes how Pittsburgh-area health care facilities have used these tools and methods to fix their problems, and gives lessons learned from failures. She describes a project to reduce infections acquired in hospitals, which included reducing nurse turnover and involving housekeepers in taking care of the problem, gives advice on making shift changes safer and reducing medication errors, and describes how to reduce wait time, apply best practices, and rewire specialty practice. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)