ABSTRACT
It will be more productive, however, to begin with the patient’s progress through the main processes of healthcare-the clinical processes such as outpatient and inpatient care. Clinical processes are in effect supported by ancillary and nonclinical processes. In manufacturing, we refer to supporting processes as “feeder lines” because they “feed into” the main flow of the production process, and in manufacturing the mapping of feeder lines is normally postponed until the main flow of production has been understood. Likewise, in this book we will focus on the main flow of production-namely, the flow through the clinical processes of healthcare; we will not examine ancillary or nonclinical processes. See Figure 3.1.
