Where is money wasted in healthcare?

[country mom]

Some time ago, I took a week-long class in a process called "Six Sigma", which began in industry and has now migrated over to health care. Officially, it is known as a "process improvement" effort, but long story short it's about cutting costs and saving money. The Six Sigma process was designed by engineers, so it takes months and months of measuring, graphing and data collection to get the end result. I'm a "cut to the chase" kinda girl, so would love to hear where other nurses are seeing wastefullneess in health care. Big things, small things, whatever.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

The Consumer Reports quote is from the September 2008 issue.