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Yesterday I spent the entire day observing three outpatient departments in ‘my’ case study hospital. I talked to the Orthopaedics, Surgery and Gynaecology outpatient departments and watched how surgeries are planned and organized. The night before I prepared the visit by looking at the facts and figures – the production data of 5 years, from …

Hospital IT systems are replaced by intelligent agents called secretaries Lees verder »

If the demand for products or services are stable, then logistics is easy. In any household for example there are repetitive rythms, determined by meal times and working days. Meal times determine the moment that food supplies need to be in the house and working days could determine when there is time to buy these. …

Variation in Operating Room production; predictable or not? Lees verder »

I am writing this blog for several reasons. First of all because I just like writing. Secondly I would like to share knowledge with people working in hospitals, with logistical or healthcare operations experts and basically anyone else who is interested in my research, including my friends and family who occassionally inform how my research …

Blogging on scientific research Lees verder »

In the past weeks I have started my first case study research in a hospital. My main research question is of what elements the logistical system consists and how it functions. My focus is on the Operating Room department (OR) and all its supply  chain partners, varying from nursing departments to the central sterilization unit. …

Starting case research Lees verder »

Besides looking at logistical parameters I also did a scoping review on hospital strategy and logistics. I was wondering to what extent logistical parameters play a role in making hospital strategies. From personal work experience I did not expect a strong link between hospital strategy and logistics, given the observations I mentioned earlier. But, I …

Hospital strategy and logistics: separate worlds? Lees verder »

Two weeks ago I received the comments on my first article, in which the results of the scoping study on logistical parameters were presented. The journal was positive about the topic of hospital logistics but reading the critical comments made me feel discouraged for a moment. If these were film critics, I would’nt get a …

Scientific peer review Lees verder »

After some trial and error excercise in literature research I established a fruitful search strategy. My search strategy consisted of three separate searches in three different databases, PubMed, EBSCOhost and JSTOR. I searched on: Hospital AND Logistics Hospital AND Flow AND Process Hospital AND Supply Chain Management Hospital AND Operations Management I limited my search …

What do we get from literature on hospital logistics Lees verder »

With the main question being what role logistics plays in hospital strategy I started literature research in 2016. A more specific question for this research was which logistical parameters were mentioned in relation to hospitals. We (by ‘we’ I mean the PhD team with three (assistant) professors and me, see ‘About me’) took parameters as …

Logistics in hospitals: what is it about? Lees verder »

My most insistent question when starting to write the PhD proposal was how it is possible that large investments are made in mergers and new hospital facilities, that from research and my own observations these investments did not seem to add value, while at the same time there is pressure on hospitals to be more …

Research proposal: asking the right question Lees verder »

In 2006 I started to model the entire logistical hospital system to assess the design of a new hospital building. With this model it was possible to analyze for example walking distances, occupation of space, elevators, hallways and crossing of clean and infectious patients or goods. The typical hospital has many nodes – 111 in …

Hospital as logistical system: too big too detail? Lees verder »