Christopher Strear, MD
& Dr. Danilo Sirias- Smash the Bottleneck: Fixing Patient Flow - A Provider's Guide to TOC in Health Care
(Operations / Supply Chain)
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About this Conference Video:
This presentation shows the results of a collaboration between a medical practitioner, Christopher Strear, and an academic, Danilo Sirias, proposing a practical approach to implementing TOC to improve patient flow. This collaboration started after Chris, without any TOC training (just reading the Goal), applied the 5 Focusing Steps to a hospital where inpatient lengths of stay were too long, and the ED was closed to ambulance traffic for 60 hours every month, on average, due to overcrowding. Within months of applying TOC to the hospital's system, they had virtually eliminated ambulance diversion. Their rates of patients who left without being seen rate in the ED fell sharply, and inpatient length of stay was reduced to levels below the national benchmark. This was accomplished during a devastating influenza epidemic, a period of record ED patient volumes, record ambulance traffic, and record numbers of admissions. Danilo found this case while doing a literature review of TOC cases in healthcare and contacted Chris. Their work and the potential applications of TOC to improve patient flow has
been published in the book titled: Smash the Bottleneck: Fixing Patient Flow for Better Care.
About the Presenters:
Dr. Danilo Sirias has a master’s degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering and a Ph.D. in Business Administration both from The University of Memphis. He is also a certified Critical Chain Project Manager and a certified TOCICO thinking process implementer. Dr Sirias created the Problem Solving Maps methodology to teach mathematics, which is currently being used in several countries to improve student's performance. In addition, Dr. Sirias’ research interests include how the Theory of Constraints can be used to improve patient flow in Emergency Departments, Inpatient Units, Operating Rooms and Outpatient Clinics. He is co-author of the book: Smash the Bottleneck: Fixing Patient Flor for Better Care. Dr. Sirias is currently a Professor in the Department of Management and Marketing at Saginaw Valley State University.
Dr. Christopher Strear earned a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently the Director of Patient Flow for Northwest Acute Care Specialists and is an attending physician in emergency medicine at Legacy Emanuel Medical
Center in Portland, Oregon. Additionally, he is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. He began his career in Operational Flow and Process Improvement as the Director of Patient
Flow at Legacy Emanuel Health Center in 2008. His Emergency Department implementation resulted in a dramatic reduction of length of stay and in savings of $3 million dollars to the hospital in year one. His flow team was twice awarded the John G.
King Quality Award for accomplishments in clinical quality and process improvement. He is currently patient flow advisor and internal consultant to multiple hospital flow steering committees in the Pacific Northwest. He is co-author of the book: Smash
the Bottleneck: Fixing Patient Flor for Better Care.
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