ABSTRACT
At the end of the 20th century, a number of factors surprisingly pushed American healthcare in a new direction. This new direction called the “industrialization phase” of American healthcare appeared when the consensus in government and industry coalesced around the belief that costs could not continue rising at the same rate, and quality had to improve. The standard definition of industrialization as “conversion to the methods, aims, and ideals of industry” (dictionary.com) provides a useful starting point in understanding healthcare industrialization, but it misses an important element. Healthcare industrialization is the conversion to industrial quality methods, aims, and ideals. The significant difference is the emphasis on quality rather than simply duplicating manufacturing. The industrialization phase of healthcare described here focuses on the industrial quality movement that began in Japan following World War II and was developed in America in the 1980s following the failure of American mass production to compete with the higher quality coming out of Japan (Dobyns and Crawford-Mason 1991).
