Can hospitals be as efficient as the Cheesecake Factory?

Hmmm - I think I would rather work at the cheesefactory. Al;l things being equal.

I don't think this guy ate at the same chain I've been to.

if only patients had all the same ingredients! Maybe then we could be more homogenized.

I read the first page, then realized it was 10 pages long and gave up. Maybe later.

It won't let me open it on my phone

I did! At the beginning, I bristled at where I thought the article was going. The author's interview with the CF kitchen manager and all that. I envisioned the article going to assembly-line healthcare, which seemed impersonable and impossible.

At the end of the article, though, it became clearer to me what the author/doctor was hoping for: cost-effective best practices implemented for every patient where it makes clinical sense.

The idea that everyone after a heart attack should be prescribed betablockers to increase survival is mentioned in the article. I actually heard one doctor complain that not every doctor was following that best practice in my own hospital. She exclaimed to no one in particular, "It's a standard of care; how hard is to to order the damn thing!"

I get what the author is saying. The culture of medicine, however, will take some time to change. Doctors like their independence and their own way of doing things.

Gawande is a great writer, and I think a great doc. He wrote another piece I linked to a week or so ago. If you have any interest in the business side of medicine, he covers it a fair amount, and has a wonderful book about surgeons and medical errors. I haven't read it yet (just got the issue the other day), but I started reading it online and it looked really good.

Gawande writes frequent articles, all of which are good, but one of his books should be required reading for everyone in healthcare; the Checklist Manifesto.