Increase Productivity and Incentive Within Healthcare
Posted By: Jason Vander Weele 
Date Posted: September 28th, 2009 Category: Cost & Quality
I believe that a fundamental problem within healthcare is that there is limited incentive for individuals to operate at a high efficiency. I’ve worked in the non-profit sector for much of my life, and have been witness to this. Unlike the for-profit sector, the incentives in non-profits and particularly healthcare are often only "knowing you’re doing good work". While this is great in theory, the reality is that it does not motivate many people to move to the next level of skill, quality, or efficiency. And, it is the skill, quality, and efficiency that is going to save real money, not the "feel good" mantra.
Since much of our current problem in healthcare is the lack of efficiency throughout many systems, if healthcare could find a way to provide more competitiveness within their own organizations, and allow for a more rapid growth of individual achievements, I believe savings would occur even with added cost of incentive and promotion. My thought is for the non-profit world to take a good look at the corporate world, and figure out how corporations are able to achieve leaps and bounds, while often times the non-profit sector is seen as always "catching up". We can be better than just playing catch-up.
Comment By: Mike Capizzi
Date & Time: September 29, 2009 at 9:46 am
Agreed; not for profit status does not mean that an organization cannot think, operate and execute as a for profit would, of course within regulatory requirements. This discrepency is even greater when adding academic institutions/liaisions to the equation. I see progress at the corporate level of health/hospital systems, but to have this (standardization, lean, six sigma, project management, etc.) filter down and become the standardized culture within all layers of an organization is a major on-going challenge.