Why hospital performance cannot be understood without population, capacity, and context. Aurelian’s Casebook Casebook #3 The dashboard was green. Surgical backlog: 0%. No patients were waiting beyond the hospital’s defined backlog threshold. Then the hospital director received a question from regional leadership: Why is your operating room performing so few surgeries? It was a reasonable … Read more
Agent. Host. Environment. All three may be present—and the outcome can still be different. Three people live in the same community. The same infectious agent is circulating. They experience similar environmental conditions and opportunities for exposure. One never becomes infected. Another becomes infected but develops no apparent illness. A third develops clinical disease. Why? At … Read more
Aurelian’s Casebook Casebook #2 A performance indicator can tell us something about a system. That does not make improving the indicator the purpose of the system. Healthcare organizations measure utilization for good reasons. Admissions, bed-days, occupancy, outpatient activity, and referrals help leaders understand demand, capacity, access, and how healthcare resources are being used. But an … Read more