Waiting too long: bottlenecks and improvements – a case study of a surgery department

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to promote a business process approach for developing and improving the efficiency of hospital service quality in order to reduce clinical risks and increase patients satisfaction. The problems healthcare facilities face are how to reduce waste and risk and improve quality. The adoption of a process-focused organization could reduce organizational errors which have a negative influence on performance. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a case study methodology, analyzing a specific real-life case. It is shown a practical example in the surgery department of an Italian hospital, identifying, analyzing and managing critical situations, in terms of improvement. To this end, national and international contributions, public documents, institutional websites, conference papers, books, workshops and hospital websites have been analyzed. Moreover, other data were collected through questionnaires. Findings – Results show how a comprehensive view of the processes may lead to improvement in operations by identifying different risks and bottlenecks, suggesting the rapid implementation of corrective policies and improvements, in terms of overall efficiency. Practical implications – By implementing innovative organizational processes to identify and reduce bottleneck a healthcare system could achieve a competitive advantage. Originality/value – Within the Italian healthcare system, limited attention has been paid to the design of healthcare facilities. Flexible solutions are necessary for lean management. The originality of this work lies in the analysis applied to a complex organization, through which hidden critical situations have been identified, and solutions to improve and provide better healthcare management have been suggested.