Older, more active, more mobile, and more sophisticated healthcare consumers demand an ever more diverse healthcare team. Specialty hospitals, retail clinics, networked home care devices, house calls, health advice Web sites, and medical tourism represent the leading edge of innovation in healthcare delivery.

Consider the following medical care scenarios… You are in a car accident and are transported, unconscious, to the emergency room (ER) of the local hospital.

Medication reconciliation has been a requirement for acute care hospitals for more than a year. The regulation requires hospitals to implement a professional process to obtain and document a complete list of the patient’s active medications upon admission.

Last fall, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) embarked on the next phase of a plan aimed at continuing to improve the patient safety and quality of care across its network of 19 hospitals and more than 400 outpatient sites, physician practices, and other care facilities.

Government and private industry have worked together to address policy issues throughout America’s history. For example, since the 1970s, NASA has been in the forefront of research and development in the field of telemedicine with the help of private industry.

Most of what I hear about interoperability refers to sharing data among information systems. But in late June, I spent 3 days at a joint conference of organizations working on the interoperability of medical devices.

Hospitals that worry whether making care for patients safe makes them money or costs them money will never be safe.

The adoption and use of barcode technology is on the rise as hospital administrators and healthcare providers gain familiarity with its value.

Ever since the Institute of Medicine reported that up to 98,000 Americans die each year as the result of medical errors (2000) and observed that our healthcare system suffers from a “chasm” between consistent, high-quality care that is based on the best scientific knowledge available and the care many actually receive (2001), there has been renewed vigor in reducing variation and improving healthcare for all Americans.

Most of us have lived through the Disney experience. To spend a day in a Disney theme park is truly a lesson in optimizing people flow. From the moment visitors arrive at the parking lot to when they return to their rental cars, they are sequentially guided from place to place in a magical orchestration of guides, trams, ticket takers, ride operators, cartoon characters, and food servers.