The Process Matters

It has been a decade since Atul Gawande wrote his piece in The New Yorker, Big Med, admonishing health care provider organizations to operate more like The Cheesecake Factory. His point? Health care organizations should standardize—both administrative and clinical—to control cost and improve quality. His premise was that 95% of what organizations do should be standard processes and 'customization' happens in the 5%.

The concept sparked controversy. Is health care like retail restaurants? Is the 95%/5% ratio realistic? Do process management and clinical decision support fly in the face of person-centered care?

In the decade that . . .