Excellence through optimized operations
Why should you read this paper? Achieving operational excellence will help health systems meet the rising patient demand despite the challenge of dwindling workforce availability. The rapid development in digitalization, data, and artificial intelligence technology gives us reasons to be optimistic about the future of healthcare as these technologies are instrumental in advancing healthcare operations. This paper shares concrete solutions that exist today to help healthcare professionals do more with less, as well as provides insights into what the future holds in achieving operational excellence in healthcare. The three broad strategies for achieving operational excellence are: Enabling care teams to focus on what matters most Embracing and utilizing new models of work Ensuring technological and operational sustainabilityModeling the human liver
Liver conditions like tumors or fatty liver disease are affecting an increasing number of people. Liver cancer alone is the third deadliest form of cancer worldwide with only a 16% five-year survival rate. But there are many stages in liver disease and patients could be treated if they were diagnosed early enough. So there is a need for both early diagnosis and better therapy options. Chloé wants to do her part in meeting this need. I think it’s very rewarding to try and apply science to build solutions that could help patients live longer and healthier lives. Chloé Audigier, Senior AI Research Scientist at Siemens Healthineers Based in Switzerland, Chloé is one of our Senior AI Research Scientists. Currently, she’s working on a project developing a digital twin of the human liver: “Digital twins are computer models that aim to represent for example an organ of a patient in an individualized, accurate and virtual way,” she explains. “Such models could help clinicians simulate or test several therapy options virtually before performing them on the actual patient.”The healthcare architect
Stefanie Vonhoff chuckles as she recalls the mountains of paperwork that filled the offices of her earlier architectural firms. Dusty sketch rolls cluttered every corner and the drawers were overflowing. That was before she joined Siemens Healthineers as an architect 16 years ago. For Stefanie Vonhoff, a mother of four raising her two youngest children on her own, a career change marked a venture into the unknown terrain of hospital planning — one of the "supreme disciplines" of architecture in terms of complexity. Ever since, Vonhoff has been planning a wide variety of hospital wards with her colleagues in the Facility Design & Planning Services department, which is part of the Enterprise Services unit. She is now team lead of the Partnership Projects group. The 65-strong multidisciplinary team that makes up the Facility Design & Planning Services department includes architects, technology planners, 3D experts, CAD engineers, and software developers. Efficiency plays a major role both in my architectural planning and in my private life. As a single mother, I have to be very structured to make sure I can keep all the plates spinning. Stefanie Vonhoff, Architect, Facility Design & Planning Services Everything is digital and efficient "What I love about my job is the diversity of people and professional groups I get to work with. And also that everything here is digital and efficient," says Vonhoff. As she speaks, she surveys a large number of colored digital boxes on her computer screen. This is a project management tool developed in-house at Siemens Healthineers. With it, she can see the status of ongoing customer projects around the globe. The Facility Design & Planning Services team executes some 8,000 planning projects in around 80 different countries every year. From her computer, Vonhoff designs layouts for more or less anything conceivable in the clinical sector: radiology, cardiology, and nuclear medicine departments, therapy centers, emergency departments, and much more. Sometimes entirely new buildings are needed, and sometimes the task is to modernize or expand existing facilities. Vonhoff acquired the necessary specialized knowledge of medical technology step by step. “And I learn something new every day,” she says with a laugh.
