In the series of blogs on who is running the hospital, so far I have talked about nurses , surgeons and anesthesiologists. They all have coordinative tasks. Besides these agents, there are three people in the hospital with perhaps the most important position of all.  Let’s call them John, Anne and Nikky. It does not feel …

The hospital coordinator: broker, negiotiator, educator, pedagogue, administrator… Lees verder »

My first journal paper of my PhD research was published last November. It was my first scientific paper ever. Although I have written many reports and papers over the past 20 years, writing a scientific paper was something else. It was a team effort of all authors. It was peer reviewed twice. It took a time: …

My first journal paper now available open access Lees verder »

When I started my case study research in the hospital, somewhere in the back of my mind there was this thought: I have been working in hospitals for over 10 years, so what more will I learn from this? Of course I did not really believe the answer to be ‘little’ – otherwise I would …

Anesthesiology: a hidden logistics power? Lees verder »

One of the fun things about doing observations in a hospital is that you see lots of unexpected things. When observing surgeries or patient consultations in the outpatient department I was introduced to doctors and nurses. After been told what my background was (systems engineer/consultant) some asked whether I was going to investigate how efficient …

Regarding the hospital as factory Lees verder »

Surgeons lead nomadic lives in hospitals. Nomads have no fixed habitation and regularly move to and from the same areas (special thanks to Wikipedia for this non scientific definition, but for this purpose it will do). Surgeons travel between places that are run by nurses, in order to service their patients. Interestingly this type of nomadic life …

Surgeons: the hospital’s nomads Lees verder »

This is going to be my first Dutch blog (indeed, bad start!). I was at a conference on science blogging and as most sites I will refer to are in Dutch, this seems like the most obvious thing to do. Via Rosanne Hertzberger had ik van dit symposium vernomen . Met haar en iets van …

Science blogging: just do it Lees verder »

I received quite some response on the blog on nurses who run the hospital. It appears that to several people who are a nurse or represent nurses it felt like some kind of recognition or appreciation for what they do. Nevertheless, the fact that nurses ‘run’ the hospital is not necessarily good news. It means …

Keeping up with the nurses Lees verder »

Happy new year! These fireworks are in fact nine social networks for nine tasks that are performed in order to do surgeries for patients. The entire network in my previous blog is built up from 23 social networks, one for each task. Tasks are for example: making the master schedule for the operating theatre (OT), …

Centralization without hierarchy: a ground for organizational firework? Lees verder »

Professor Frits van Merode had already said it to me in the early days of my PhD research: hospitals are actually run by nurses. I think his statement did not fully hit me or maybe in my subconscience I thought it was one of those things that is also said about ‘the wife behind the …

Do nurses run the hospital? Lees verder »

Time flies; my last blog was in September when I thought I was almost ready with my hospital social network. The social network is not yet complete – soon will be!! – so I will wait sharing that. In the meantime my first (scientific) paper (ever) has been accepted and will be published any time …

Hospital management by learning Lees verder »