ABSTRACT
In the introduction of an earlier edition of this book in the late 1990s, I noted health care was changing so quickly that incremental improvement approaches would not always be adequate or appropriate. I stated that the changes the public and consumers needed from health care could not be delivered using continuous improvement approaches and techniques alone. This is even truer today. To meet the demands of changing demographics-older, heavier, less healthy patients-the changing environment with reduced revenues, rapidly evolving technologies, and more regulations, it is critical to learn strategies and methods for constructing different, new, and vastly improved care delivery approaches and processes.
