Overview

Medical Reengineering Consultants will target not-for-profit hospital groups as their primary client. It is the objective of MRC to bridge the gap between hospitals and physicians. MRC wishes to take the perspective of healthcare from the patient’s viewpoint. The changes in financing of healthcare delivery over the last 40-50 years has removed this perspective. Beginning with traditional third party payors such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield and accelerating with the Medicare/Medicaid programs, the customer for medical care has shifted from the patient to the third party payors. At the same time, the explosive growth of effective medical and surgical therapy has sharply escalated the relative cost of healthcare in the United States. General alarms were raised about this process as early as the 1960's and accelerated in the 1980's when healthcare exceeded 10% of gross domestic product. Now healthcare accounts for approximately 14% of GDP.

The extremely rapid growth of the healthcare industry has resulted in numerous inefficiencies as the new medical and surgical therapies are brought on-line. The shifting source of payments for healthcare have failed to bring discipline into the industry. A top-down approach to controlling the problem is ineffective and tends to produce irrational use of scarce resources. By targeting the interaction between physicians and hospitals, it is possible to develop a more rational use of resources.

Over the past several years within the United States, there has been a strong movement to define best care guidelines. When these guidelines are developed by collaborative practice groups made up of physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, clinical pharmacologists, and other interested parties, the guidelines reflect state-of-the-art healthcare. Unfortunately the best care guidelines have become the end point rather than the starting point for reengineering healthcare delivery. It is to bridge the gap in this process that Medical Reengineering Consultants has been formed.

 Medical Reengineering Consultants will market its services on two fronts. A direct approach will be made to hospital administrators in the Central Virginia, Northern Virginia, and Tidewater areas. The offer to these administrators will be to provide facilitator guidance and move clinical guidelines into implementation. The second approach will be through MRC’s home page on the Internet. By placing the majority of the business plan at this site, it is possible to reach administrators who are receptive to this plan for action. It is presumed that many of these administrators will already be familiar with the concepts of systems engineering.

Regardless of the source of client, the approach to reengineering the healthcare delivery will be similar. Basic systems engineering tools will be utilized to refocus physicians and hospitals approach to healthcare. This process will begin with the receptionist either in the Emergency Room or the physician’s office and extend through the convalescent period. It will be very important to harness the ideas and energy of the staff members actually delivering the healthcare. These individuals have a tremendous amount of insight into the inefficiencies and strengths of the current process. They represent a tremendous untapped resource for reengineering. This is a very basic concept to other industries but quite foreign to the healthcare industry.