Health Care – OM in the News

Generic Pills Can Be Hard to Swallow

The drug production system is broken. Fixing it requires putting quality first.

Generic drugs are supposed to be affordable alternatives to name-brand medications. Contrary to what the F.D.A. claims, a pill is not always a pill. In the quest for ever-cheaper generic drugs, quality has sometimes – not always! – been sacrificed both in the US and abroad, and without a transparent rating system, health consumers are kept in the dark. Furthermore, the reliance on a few foreign suppliers of active […]

By Corinne M. Karuppan, Ph.D.|2021-09-29T18:49:34+00:00October 5, 2021|Tags: process capability, product quality, quality control, shortage, six sigma, sourcing|

Operation Warp Speed

Not since World War II and the Manhattan Project, has a project been so important to the world as Operations Warp Speed. Its goal was to take a process that normally takes years to complete, and bring the COVID-19 vaccine to the world.

As a result of its importance, a public-private effort using many resources sped the development of the vaccine. Under less urgent circumstances, vaccine development may take up to 10 years, billions of dollars, and have a high failure […]

By Ross L. Fink, Ph.D.|2021-03-16T04:03:21+00:00March 15, 2021|Tags: coronavirus, covid-19, crashing, logistics, project management, projects, vaccine|

The Impact of COVID-19 on Hospital Resources

Healthcare professionals are often described as the heroes of the COVID-19 crisis.

For more than a year, they have shown a remarkable resilience. Under extreme duress, they have expanded their skill repertoire and stretched their own physical and emotional limits to provide complex and compassionate care. The article underscores the difficulty of formulating capacity plans to respond quickly and effectively to successive surges in demand while normal revenue streams are constrained.

Video Spotlight: Burnout in the ICU

This […]

By CMKaruppan|2021-03-07T21:39:05+00:00March 11, 2021|Tags: flexibility, short term capacity, strategic capacity management, work force scheduling|

California’s Maxed ICU Capacity and Lockdowns

California led the nation in early lockdown measures for COVID during the holiday season at the end of 2020. This followed the pattern set in spring 2020, when California locked down early and swiftly, stemming a tide of rising COVID cases and flattening the curve successfully.

This time, the state pointed to dire forecasts for December to justify another rapid shutdown, with the trigger being ICU capacity.

The state is divided into five regions. If available ICU capacity drops below 15% in […]

By Lisa M. Spencer|2021-01-08T18:27:01+00:00January 8, 2021|Tags: capacity planning, coronavirus, covid-19, forecasting, pandemic|