The Complete Kit Concept – Implementation in the health care system

Abstract

One of the fundamentals of good health care management that is rarely discussed in the literature is the ‘complete kit’ concept, which suggests that operations, medical procedures and processes should not start until all the items required for completion of the job are available. These items (the kit) include medical documents, medical tools, information etc. Starting a medical procedure with an incomplete kit means more medical time to finish the procedure, longer lead time, more ‘work in process’, reduction of throughput, poor quality and impairment of due date performance. This paper analyzes the various facets of the complete kit concept in the health care system and suggests how to implement the complete kit concept in a medical process. The paper also incorporates the complete kit concept into the context of well-established managerial philosophies such as TOC and TQM.