Constraint In Health Care

The case argues that Theory of Constraints (TOC) can be used to improve the scheduling system in a hospital or a health care service. Complexity, Uncertainty and Local Optima are the cause of Chaos in most health care environments that causes disruptions in effectively managing the patients and effectively utilizing the physicians. Fourteen undesirable effects (UDE’s) are identified as barriers to achieving effective PAAS. The fundamental step in TOC is to identify the constraint in the system. While trying to design an effective PAAS, the physician’s time is identified as the constraint. In order to exploit the constraint, the other aspects of the system – such as supporting staff, patient flow and other resources have to support the physician.