Last week I attended a seminar on the subject of Patient-Centered Design, which included a key note address by Jim Champy, the author of the new book Reengineering Health Care: A Manifesto for Radically Rethinking Health Care Delivery (available on Amazon June 17th).  His co-author is Harry Greenspun, M.D., the Chief Medical Officer at Dell Inc. Jim is also the best selling auther of the New York Times Best Seller Reengineering the Corporation, which has sold over 3 million copies. 

Listening to Jim talk, it was clear that he knows a lot about reengineering.  He knows and conveys well that we need to stop thinking in silos, and instead that we need to think about end-to-end processes from the patient's perspective.  He also brings a clear agenda for reforming health care, and talks about how it's necessary to find ways that delivery better care at lower cost, and that by doing so that access to care can be increased.  While these were the strengths in his presentation, his health care knowledge and the examples that he used were a little bit "light" so that was the negative.  But I'm sure that as he works on his presentation, he'll be able to beef this up (maybe by reading some of the other great books profiled in this blog - click for links).

Although I was underwhelmed by Jim's command of how healthcare is actually delivered, I realize that the healthcare industry is really at its infancy when it comes to re-engineering, and there's a lot we can learn from Jim.  So if you'd like a good primer on how to improve the quality and efficiency of your home health care or private duty organization, you might give this book a gander.

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.