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We All Fall Down: Goldratt's Theory of Constraints for Healthcare Systems | 
| Authors: Julie Wright, Russ King Publisher: North River Press Category: Book
List Price: $27.50 Buy New: $15.00 You Save: $12.50 (45%)
New (13) Used (12) from $13.37
Rating: 10 reviews Sales Rank: 410466
Media: Paperback Pages: 353 Number Of Items: 1 Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3 Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0884271811 Dewey Decimal Number: 650 EAN: 9780884271819 ASIN: 0884271811
Publication Date: January 31, 2006 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description Who hasn t gone into a shop or workplace at some point and seen the sign You don t have to be mad to work here, but it helps! ? This over-used phrase becomes very real in the case of Beth Seager, an Admissions Manager in a busy British NHS hospital. Someone with very little authority but a huge amount of responsibility. She has to find beds for patients in a hospital that is claimed to work at 98% capacity an impressive achievement that means the maximum time a bed is empty is less than 15 minutes. It s best not to mention the waiting times. Unfortunately there are far more patients than beds and no money to bring more beds in. Someone has to decide whether a bed is taken by a patient who needs an extensive operation that will allow them to live a few more months, a breast cancer patient, or someone with two broken legs. Added to that, Beth is struggling against her caustic boss Fearsome Fran and her meddling assistant Evil Eddy who tries to undermine her and take her job. Everything comes to a head when Fearsome Fran announces a new silver bullet plan to free up more beds. Beth knows that not only will it not work, but that she is effectively being demoted. But what can she do? She has 61 more patients than she has beds and a very short period to time to stamp her authority on Fran s new plan in order to stop it making things much worse. Her luck changes when eligible bachelor Professor John Summers becomes her unlikely ally after becoming frustrated with the number of his operations that keep being cancelled. She also starts receiving some interesting advice over email from her brother-in-law in the US and slowly starts to believe that she can unravel the mess of the health service system and find the core problem and then the main constraint of her particular hospital. We All Fall Down. Goldratt s Theory of Constraints for Healthcare Systems is a textbook written in the style of a witty, thriller novel. The reader is involved with Beth s challenges and dilemmas, and through her experiences, discover how Eli Goldratt s theories can be applied to the healthcare and service industries. You don t have to be mad to work in the health services, you have to be caring, dedicated and resourceful as any errors can have fatal consequences. If you know someone from the health service, buy them this book so they can see the whole picture and what they can do improve the system. However, this book is also essential reading for anyone who has been frustrated by hospital delays or who works in other service industries such as teaching. We All Fall Down is destined to revolutionise the service industry and not-for-profit sector in the same way that Eli Goldratt s book The Goal did for the manufacturing industry. Don t be left on the waiting list!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
Treat the Symptoms or the Root Cause March 11, 2009 Karl Buckridge (London UK) Written as a detective story, the author takes you on a journey that 'unpicks' the puzzle of the Health Service. It clearly demonstrates how powerful staff can become once they are aware of the effect the core conflict of the organization is having on their daily lives. Instantly recognizable, the situations described in this book will ring true to every reader, but what about the answer? How to break out of the often impossible position people are forced to face day after day. Breaking this conflict, through the power of cause and effect logic, enables the system to achieve successes beyond everybody's expectations? "It is not the strongest or most intelligent of the species who survive, it is those most responsive to change"... Charles Darwin.
Worth the Read - Another Arrow in the TOC Quiver January 20, 2009 T. G. Griffin (Colorado Springs, CO) Well worth the read. Highlights some of TOC's Thinking Processes in a very practical and fun way. As with all of the TOC novels, it is important to remember that they are applications of TOC, which is a generic management system. I was a tad disappointed in the ultimate solution to the problem presented in the book. It ended the book with a very `deus ex machina' feel instead of the usual demonstration from TOC that the constraint is usually in policy and lack of end-to-end thought. Still, as said mentioned, well worth the read - should be supplemented with The Goal and It's Not Luck.
Very good story - incredibly insightful January 23, 2007 Farnoosh (USA) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book was a slow start, then I really started to come up to speed on the healthcare system, their challenges and issues and enter Harry, with the ideas on Theory of Constraints which Beth grasps very quickly and starts to put to use. It is very encouraging as she decides to take on this amazingly large task to hand, armed with just her new thinking and analyzing techniques. I really enjoyed the read. I was however very frustrated and disappointed at the endless number of punctuation, grammar, and other similar English language errors that the publishers had made. I will be sure to contact them to make them aware of it. Good read, and I highly recommend it.
We All Fall Down Stands Tall November 12, 2006 Edward Millermaier, MD (Kalamazoo) 2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Julie Wright's application of the Theory of Constraints to the healthcare system in the UK is relevant to anyone in the healthcare industry. The techniques used in the novel are so fundamental they transcend the model of financing and management of the system. In fact, you will have a better understanding of the system you are in if you read the book. I have always thought we physicians were a bottleneck in the system. Reading We All Fall Down confirms this. The novel is very entertaining, easy to read and makes some great points. I recommend it highly to anyone in healthcare management or leadership. It's not bad as a general read as well. Ed Millermaier, MD Chief Medical Officer, Ambulatory Care Division, Borgess Health, Kalamazoo, Michigan.
We all may fall, but this book stands tall! July 8, 2006 Bob L. Reary (Phoenix, AZ USA) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Julie's book is very timely and instructive in how TOC can be applied to healthcare in particular, and the services industries in general. The book is engaging and powerful and also breaks new ground (such as expanding on Dr. Goldratt's 6 layers of resistance; and the real-world, relevant examples of use are especially good). In addition to the strong treatment of some of the key TOC Thinking Process tools, the book is a how-to for change management as well. I have read "We All Fall Down" 3 times, and each time have gained new insights into the applications.
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