Executive Briefing: The Value of Time in Healthcare
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executive Briefing:
The Value of Time
in Healthcare
Because so much is still done manually in the chaotic, urgent and ever-changing
environment of healthcare delivery, time can be wasted at virtually every step of
the patient experience, from check-in to discharge.
Wasted time in the healthcare system contributes to emergency department
overcrowding and anxious patients waiting in hallways for beds. It adds to the
underlying reasons patients may be turned away from the optimal care they
need. And, it's a big reason why operating rooms go overtime and still fall far
short of being used to their maximum.
Yet wasted time is rarely included in the discussion of waste and spiraling costs
for U.S. healthcare.
What is the value of Time?
For decades, productivity experts in other
industries have assigned a dollar value to
time. Yet in healthcare, the value of time is
much more associated with lives than it
is with dollars.
It is commonly accepted that the sooner
a patient gets to the right care in the right
place with the right resources, the better
the chances for a positive outcome. Health-
care providers rightfully link timely care to
positive patient outcomes, but making a
link between time and dollars has been less
perceptible and may even be viewed as
somewhat objectionable.
This may be explained partly by the fact
that there are no "units of production," per
se, in healthcare. Each patient is a unique
individual and each case has distinctive
components, making productivity measurement, in the traditional sense, more elusive.
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