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Naar een procesgestuurd ziekenhuis: beoogde effecten van een logistiek verbeterprogramma.

Vos, L., Dückers, M., Bruijn, M. de, Wagner, C., Groenewegen, P., Merode, F. van. Naar een procesgestuurd ziekenhuis: beoogde effecten van een logistiek verbeterprogramma. TSG: Tijdschrift voor Gezondheidswetenschappen: 2008, 86(4), p. 207-215.
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Traditionally Dutch hospitals are organized in a functional way. Nowadays, hospitals are in the middle of a transition towards a process-oriented organization. In a process-oriented hospital, services are organized around the needs of specific patient groups. In order to accelerate the transition, patient logistics is made one of the priorities of the national quality improvement programme Better Faster. The logistic sub-programme consists of three improvement projects: Working Without Waiting list, Operating Theatre and Business Process Redesign. Aim of the programme is to realize considerable performance improvements in terms of capacity use and service delivery to patients. The programme also supports the development towards a process-oriented organization. This article describes the programme’s feasibility and the accompanying factors for success- and failure of the development towards the process-oriented organisation by comparing the program theory to insights from (inter)national literature. Different theorists agree on the nature of necessary steps, but there is no consensus on their sequence. It is uncertain whether proposed improvement actions, aimed at optimal capacity use, optimal service delivery and development towards a process-oriented organisation, have to be implemented simultaneous or step by step. However, it is more than likely, regardless of the eventual sequence, implementation of the projects will lead to conflicting interests, that threaten the general conditions for their successful implementation. (aut. ref.)