Management of Variability Program | Education & Training

Some of the Program’s upcoming and recent activities in this important area are summarized below.

Managing Hospital Operations: Using the Science of Management to Ensure Continuity, Maximize Capacity and Improve Quality of Care

This intensive five-month professional development program led by Dr. Eugene Litvak and offered through the Institute for Healthcare Improvement teaches health care executives, managers and clinicians science-based operations traning that has historically been unavailable to health care professionals. The program uses case studies and observation projects to guide participants through an in-depth examination of effective operational management. When applied to health care, these concepts will help participating organizations:

Reduce ambulance diversions
Avoid bottlenecks and waiting times in the ED and ICU
Improve staffing solutions and reduce overtime expenditures
Increase patient throughput and revenue
Improve financial performance

The next session of this program will begin November 13-15, 2006. Group enrollment in the program is highly recommended, and participants are expected to be joined by their Chief Executive Officer for the evening of the first day and the second full day of the January 24-26, 2007 meeting. This is an essential opportunity for the CEO to understand this new way of managing hospital operations as well as an opportunity to help identify and remove barriers that the teams may be encountering. Class size is limited; early enrollment is strongly recommended. For more information or to enroll online please visit the IHI website.

If you want to hear more about the program, you can join us for a free informational call on Managing Hospital Operations with Dr. Eugene Litvak.

Date: September 7, 2006
Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Eastern Time
Toll-free Number: (800) 860-2442
International Number: (412) 858-4600
Ask for the IHI Eugene Litvak Program

Patient Flow: Moving Toward Solutions

Joint Commission Resources offers a series of intensive, one-day seminars focused on the issue of patient flow in hospitals. Designed for hospital CEOs and administrators, medical directors, nurse executives, nurses and nurse managers, administrative directors/managers of ORs and EDs, ED physicians, and surgeons, the seminars' objectives are:

To teach participants patient flow techniques such as surgical smoothing, queuing and tiered triggered response and how they might be applied within your organization
To present strategies for Implementing systemic changes that fix overstressed environments and improve patient flow
To brief participants on the Joint Commission's patient flow standards, including implementation strategies

The seminars are taught by MVP faculty and are offered in various locations across the country. Past seminars have been held in Boston, Phoenix, Seattle, and Washington, DC. An upcoming seminar will be held in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois on September 12, 2006. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit the Joint Commission website or call 877-223-6866.

Operations Management in Health Care: A Program to Optimize Hospital Throughput, Capacity and Quality of Care

This seven-month Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) program was held in the Fall of 2004 and offered hospital teams the opportunity to take full advantage of OM tools and techniques that have been successfully deployed in other industries. Modeled after the successful seminar series conducted by the MVP, this interactive web-based training program was led by Dr. Eugene Litvak. Participants in the program learned how to apply theory to practice in order to:

Reduce ambulance diversions and boarding of patients
Better utilize existing beds
Increase patient throughput and volume of medical and surgical patients
Reduce bottlenecks and waiting times in the ED and ICU
Reduce staff overtime and increase staff satisfaction
Improve the financial performance of the hospital
Improve quality of care and reduce medical errors

For additional information, please visit the IHI website.

Achieve Quality Care by Managing Variability in Health Care Delivery: New Methodology to Effectively Manage Census Variations and Nurse Staffing

This one-day conference, co-sponsored with the BU School of Management, attracted about 200 participants in the fall of 2002. Nurse leaders and clinicians from all over the country attended the conference in order to learn how variability in health care delivery affects quality of care, working conditions and the financial bottom line. This comprehensive program provided solutions and strategies to address the problems of unnecessary census variations and stressful working conditions. The overall conference evaluation by participants was 4.7 out of 5.

Improving Hospital Operations through Management of Variability In Health Care Delivery

This fourteen (14) part seminar series organized by MVP and led by nationally recognized leaders including MVP faculty, President of the JCAHO, Dennis O’Leary, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Boston Medical Center, John Chessare, MD, and others, was designed for senior hospital managers and clinicians who wanted to learn about and apply new operations management techniques and strategies aimed at improving patient flow in their institutions.

Course components included:

Learning the fundamentals of operations management
Understanding the impact of variability on hospital performance
Designing and implementing change strategies in participant hospitals

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