Editorial: Delivering effective healthcare at lower cost: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

The healthcare industry represents a substantial portion of worldwide economic and social activities and initiatives and employs many people around the globe. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that its member countries spend over 8% of gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare. The United States spends almost 18% of GDP and is projected to move closer to 20% in the near future (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2019). The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that there are over 59 million workers in the healthcare arena, while the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that the United States alone has over 18 million (Centers for Disease Control, 2018; World Health Organization, 2019).Research about health-related problems by operationsmanagement (OM) scholars is increasing: The Journal of Operations Management (JOOM) has published 22 papers on this topic (not including these in this special issue) since 2015. One reason research by OM scholars about healthcare processes has rapidly increased is the open access to rich data sets that enable investigations on core operational issues. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have collected and made available volumes of data (e.g.

Health-Economic Determinants of COVID-19 Pandemic and Countries’ Efficiency

“…The healthcare industry represents a considerable portion of economic and social activities worldwide, with countries spending over 8% of GDP on healthcare. 42 Employee commitment and control theories propose that employee initiatives are critical to patient safety. 43 As such, healthcare plays a vital role in economics, making the availability of effective COVID-19 vaccines for the public at high speed.…”

Applying Value Stream Mapping to Improve the Delivery of Patient Care in the Oncology Day Hospital

“…Therefore, careful coordination by the operations manager is required. Any discoordination in the flow will contribute to longer patient waiting times and stays in the ODH, which will ultimately translate into additional costs for the health system [ 10 ] and unnecessary discomfort for oncology patients [ 11 ]. In fact, according to the related literature, waiting times are the main source of dissatisfaction among oncology patients [ 2 , 4 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ].…”