Project management can help to reduce costs and improve quality in health care services

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Health care spending has increased steadily over the last 50 years, but there is a consensus that this trend cannot continue indefinitely. The ideal solution would bring about cost reductions coupled with improvements in quality, but this has remained an elusive goal. In this article, a novel idea is proposed that consists of adopting a project type of production in health care, instead of the current mass production methods used in the modern 'health care factories'. METHODS: The author demonstrates that health care services in general, and medical services in particular, fit the category of projects. This is accomplished through a comprehensive study of the main features of projects and medical services and a comparative analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The author infers that the productivity gains brought by project management to so many other human endeavours can be brought to health care. It is also claimed that if project management is adopted in health care, then physicians would be the natural project managers because of their proficiency with the casuistic method (one-off, non-repetitive production) and because of their experience in 'managing' their patient's cases that is indeed what doctors have been doing for as long as their profession exists.