A successful use of systems approaches in cross-disciplinary healthcare improvement

Authors

  • Gary Robert Smith INCOSE
  • Julian Johnson
  • Alan Harding
  • Fran Beck

Keywords:

healthcare, frailty, system thinking, system approach

Abstract

UK Healthcare is facing many different trends: a changing demographic of an ageing and ‘frail’ population; increasing numbers of the population living with at least two long term conditions; improvements in medical care and interventions which can treat a larger number of conditions; continued budget pressures and raising expectations. Healthcare is a complex socio-technical system, and to identify and devise interventions with clear net benefits is a challenge: we see a classic ‘wicked problem’. The outcome from three INCOSE-facilitated multi-disciplinary workshops was a coherent prioritised work programme, with buy-in from all stakeholders, and traceable back to original issues and opportunities. This presentation will explain the context, the engagement from INCOSE, the nature of the workshops and techniques applied, and the outcomes. The developed programme supports the Shropshire and Telford NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP). Arguably the biggest ongoing challenge remains handling complexity and coherence across multiple stakeholder perspectives.

Author Biography

Gary Robert Smith, INCOSE

Senior Expert Systems Engineer at Airbus Defence and Space. Co-Chair of the PM/SE integration working group. INCOSE healthcare ambassador.

Published

2019-09-15

How to Cite

Smith, G. R., Johnson, J., Harding, A., & Beck, F. (2019). A successful use of systems approaches in cross-disciplinary healthcare improvement. Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the ISSS - 2018 Corvallis, OR, USA, 1(1). Retrieved from https://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings62nd/article/view/3431

Issue

Section

Health and Systems Thinking