The Cheesecake Factory By Atul Gawande Analysis
Article Summary: Big Med
Park University
Big Med: Restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation. Can health care?
Article Summary In his August 2013 article, Dr. Atul Gawande discusses how large conglomerates in health care could increase quality, control cost, and maximize innovation if they would only consider methods employed by a prominent and successful restaurant chain – The Cheesecake Factory. Gawande argues The Cheesecake Factory is able to consistently provide high-quality food and service at reasonable prices because they identify best practices, standardize them, train employees in the standards, and monitor. After observing and discussing the methods employed by the restaurant, the author discusses two health care examples in which similar methods have resulted in improvements in care quality and reduction in costs. The first example was a Boston area hospital’s orthopedic team responsible for total knee replacement. Dr. John Wright, a staff orthopedist, had been working for over a decade to standardize an efficient, high quality, reduced cost, knee replacement program. He believed 95% of cases could be standardized, with only 5% requiring unique deviations – …show more content…
They found the answer in the establishment of a remote monitoring and consultation center. The center was staffed with physicians and nurses who could monitor patients and advise staff at multiple locations. Hospital staffs were initially not pleased with the “oversight”. They felt like others were looking over their shoulder. It only took a couple of successful consultations and catches by the center to convince the staff they were not there to evaluate their performance, but rather to assist them in providing the highest quality of care to their
Park University
Big Med: Restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation. Can health care?
Article Summary In his August 2013 article, Dr. Atul Gawande discusses how large conglomerates in health care could increase quality, control cost, and maximize innovation if they would only consider methods employed by a prominent and successful restaurant chain – The Cheesecake Factory. Gawande argues The Cheesecake Factory is able to consistently provide high-quality food and service at reasonable prices because they identify best practices, standardize them, train employees in the standards, and monitor. After observing and discussing the methods employed by the restaurant, the author discusses two health care examples in which similar methods have resulted in improvements in care quality and reduction in costs. The first example was a Boston area hospital’s orthopedic team responsible for total knee replacement. Dr. John Wright, a staff orthopedist, had been working for over a decade to standardize an efficient, high quality, reduced cost, knee replacement program. He believed 95% of cases could be standardized, with only 5% requiring unique deviations – …show more content…
They found the answer in the establishment of a remote monitoring and consultation center. The center was staffed with physicians and nurses who could monitor patients and advise staff at multiple locations. Hospital staffs were initially not pleased with the “oversight”. They felt like others were looking over their shoulder. It only took a couple of successful consultations and catches by the center to convince the staff they were not there to evaluate their performance, but rather to assist them in providing the highest quality of care to their