The long history of Industrial Engineers helping in healthcare goes back 100 years to one of the “fathers of Industrial Engineering,” Frank Gilbreth — and his wife, Lillian! It was Gilbreth who noticed that surgeons spent more time searching for instruments than they spent working on the patient. Gilbreth suggested a “surgical caddy” who would find instruments and hand them to the surgeon.
Today, IEs often take more of a coaching and teaching role, rather than being the expert with the ideas, but the core I.E. principles live on. Credit goes to Todd Schneider of Ohio Health for compiling this list and posting it on the Healthcare Management Engineers Yahoo Group.
Topics like this will be discussed at the Society for Health Systems annual conference in February 2012 – in Las Vegas. I'm the “lean track” chair and I hope I'll see you there.
Todd's list (and thanks to him for including me twice):
Wall Street Journal Â
Dr. Joe Guarisco (Ochsner) and Kevin Roche (Banner), past SHS conference  presenters, were quoted in the article “ERs move to speed care; not  everyone needs a bed”:
http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB20001424053111 9048883045764762 42374040506. html
Hospital and Health Networks (circulation 63,000 healthcare C*O's): Â
Jim Benneyan, SHS Past-President and frequent conference speaker,  discusses how to “Reduce process variation to drive improvements in  quality”:
— Podcast (excerpts):
http://www.hhnmag. com/hhnmag/ HHNDaily/ HHNDailyDisplay. dhtml?id= 2650005784
— Full interview:
http://www.hhnmag. com/hhnmag_ app/jsp/articled isplay.jsp? dcrpath=HHNMAG/ Article/data/ 08AUG2011/ 0811HHN_Inbox_ OtherVoices& domain=HHNMAG
Mark Graban, SHS conference committee member and frequent conference speaker, shares how to “Cut Costs by Reducing Redundant or Inefficient  Activity”
http://www.hhnmag. com/hhnmag/ HHNDaily/ HHNDailyDisplay. dhtml?id= 2860003776
Health Facilities Management (circulation 27,000) Â
Jim Benneyan shares a project case study in an article “Systems  engineering reemerges as a hospital design tool”:
http://www.hfmmagaz ine.com/hfmmagaz ine_app/jsp/ articledisplay. jsp?dcrpath= HFMMAGAZINE/ Article/data/ 08AUG2011/ 0811HFM_Upfront_ planning& domain=HFMMAGAZINE
ADVANCE for Nurses (circulation 475,000 Registered Nurses and senior  nursing students) Â
Amanda Mewborn, SHS board member and conference co-chair, authored a guest  editorial: “Supporting Nurses with Efficiencies”
http://nursing. advanceweb. com/Features/ Articles/ Supporting- Nurses-With- Efficiencies. aspx
Quality Digest Â
Mark Graban co-authored a column: “Putting ‘Continuous' back into Health  Care Improvement”
http://www.qualityd igest.com/ inside/health- care-column/ putting-continuo us-back-health- care-continuous- improvement. html
USC News Â
David Belson, SHS member and past conference speaker, was highlighted in  the article: “The Man who Declared War on Waste”
http://uscnews. usc.edu/health/ the_man_who_ declared_ war_on_waste. html
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Mark, thank you for a great and comprehensive list.
The average person often takes for granted the role that engineers play in healthcare…
Claudius Jeager, rubber engineering consultant