Cabg Surgery Case at Massachusetts General Hospital

Part 2

Answer 1.

Primary Challenges

The improvement in operating processes in the health care environment is an important objective of hospitals, but there are various primary challenges identified to improve the operating processes of health care. The cost of improvements and changes in operating processes is a primary challenge for the hospitals due to limited financial resources (Wheelwright & Weber, 2004). Other primary challenges are requirements of more human resources or staffs, funds, implementation of new approaches in the health care process, and current environment of health care industry that affect the process of improvements in operating processes of health care in the hospitals.

Answer 2.

Care Path and Specific Features

Care path can be defined as an optimal sequencing and timing of interventions by physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other staff for a particular procedure. It is also known as a critical path, critical pathways, or clinical pathways (Wheelwright & Weber, 2004). It is designed to minimize the delays in the health care processes and maximize the quality of health care processes.

Care path can be seen as an application of process management that is used to improve patient health care in the hospital. It is used to reduce the variance in the medical or clinical practices and improves the outcomes of practices or surgeries. There are some limitations of care path method. These are as follow:

* It only covers the historical part of the patients that includes medical records of patients.

* It is limited to build the scenarios for the future, because it is based on optimal or current practices.

Answer 3.

Common Causes of Lengthy Stay

There are various common causes of extended or lengthy stay for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery patients at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). These are as follow:

* CABG surgery is required to perform number of medical tests of patients, the day before the surgery that increases the length of stay due to delays in tests.

* The length of stay for CABG patients increases, because of limited resources at MGH that includes lack of staff in surgical intensive care unit (SICU), limited availability of beds at recovery floor (Ellison 8), and no currently designed floor for patients overflow (Wheelwright & Weber, 2004).

* The delays in patient's discharge due to lack of communication between the recovery staff of hospital and referring physicians, medical complaints, and lack of weekend admissions to rehab facilities are also responsible for increasing the length of stay for CABG patients (Wheelwright & Weber, 2004).

Answer 4.

Important Steps to Develop Care Path

Bohmer and Torchiana developed a team of 25 people to develop a care path that included a cardiologist, a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, various residents, and staffs from operating rooms, SICU, Ellison8, as well as social workers and non medical staff (Wheelwright & Weber, 2004). Some of the important steps were taken by the care path team