Raising Standards in American Health Care

To thrive in the highly competitive health care marketplace, organizations must consistently demonstrate their ability to contain costs, improve quality, and increase customer satisfaction. In Raising Standards in American Health Care, nationally acclaimed health care management expert V. Clay Sherman shows managers and executives how to utilize the powerful management force of strategic standardization to overcome the most common barriers to these challenges-and increase competitive advantage. Raising Standards in American Health Care translates proven Fortune 500 business strategies into pathways toward operational excellence for health care organizations. The book offers a review of the important lessons learned from corporate business giants-including Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and others-who have forged their paths to performance excellence by mastering the art of strategic standardization. Raising Standards in American Health Care draws on the most current developments in modern management practice and theory such as the balanced scorecard, stretch goals, and the focused health care factory. In addition, the book's concepts are enhanced by a wealth of helpful materials including descriptive tables, charts, illustrations, internet information sources, and suggested discussion questions that can be used as a springboard for action. Sherman clearly demonstrates that superior outcomes and competitive advantage can be achieved as organizations aggressively raise the standards of American health care. In this landmark book, Sherman outlines a working model of strategic standardization and offers reliable methods to guide health care leaders in their quest todemonstrate measurable change. In clear terms, the author shows how to achieve standardization of defined clinical protocols, administrative and non-clinical functions, as well as standardization in equipment, procedures, professional practice, and organization performances.