An obstacle to patient-centered care: poor supply systems

It is widely acknowledged that patients and their families should be deeply involved in the design of and decisions about the health care that the former receive — and that it is integral to achieving high quality and patient satisfaction. But delivering such “patient-centered care” has proven challenging. After hundreds of hours of observations in hospitals throughout the U.S. and Canada, Anita L. Tucker has come to the conclusion [written up in an article for the Harvard Business Review] that health care professionals will continue to struggle to deliver it unless hospitals redesign their internal supply processes, structures, and measurement systems so that staff have the specific materials and equipment needed for patients’ individual care plans, when they are needed. The good news is that approaches in other industries offer possible models for hospitals and other care providers.