Managing Patient-to-patient Interaction: the Waiting Room Experience

This article introduces the topic of how patient-to-patient interaction can take many forms in healthcare settings. It provides many illustrations of such interactions, and examines patient confidentiality and the fairness of waiting in detail. Healthcare practitioners need to be professionals in managing patient-to-patient interactions as well as employee-to-patient interactions.

Replicating the Networking, Mentoring and Venture Creation Benefits of Entrepreneurship Centres on a Shoestring: A Student-centred Approach to Entrepreneurship Education and Venture Creation

As support for both university-level entrepreneurial education and the use of experiential learning methods to foster student entrepreneurs increases, so too have the number of university-established or affiliated entrepreneurship centers. The activity at the center of this study aimed to combine experiential learning methods with assets associated with entrepreneurship centers, including venture creation, networking, and mentoring. Students were invited to participate in a competition wherein they were guided through the business creation process and pitched their ideas to investor judges who chose the winner and provided capital start-up funding and consulting. This research puts forth that university faculty at institutions without entrepreneurship centers can organize experiences to provide the benefits of entrepreneurship centers. The study used interviews to find that many of the benefits of entrepreneurship centers were able to be replicated using this method. The project is outlined, outcomes are analyzed, and the results and lessons learned are discussed.

Responding to Fluctuating Demand for Healthcare Services

The level of demand for healthcare services can fluctuate quite strongly. Indeed, some parts of the healthcare service are renowned for having peaks of demand which challenge capacity. Dealing with fluctuations in demand is a common problem in many service industries. This article examines some of the strategies available for influencing the level of demand, including the use of price, communications and demand analysis. The article also outlines a wide variety of ways in which patients can be encouraged to be more tolerant of waiting to receive service from healthcare professionals. In particular, eight principles of waiting are discussed and illustrated in the context of healthcare services.

Developing and Using Consultancy Skills

In Chapter 4, ‘Developing and using consultancy skills’, Ruth Sacks and I discuss what it means to be a consultant and what is it that consultants do. This is presented in the order of stages in a project; starting, ‘doing’ and ending, with specific sections dedicated to examining each stage. Adopting a consulting approach helps L&D professionals to ‘demonstrate’ the value they bring, and may be undertaken through projects that have been articulated and justified through a business case.

Capacity Management in Healthcare Services

The level of demand for healthcare services can fluctuate widely and this can place pressure on the capacity of service providers. This article examines some of the approaches used to influence the level of available capacity in the healthcare services sector. A number of strategies designed to flex capacity are discussed, including the development of flexible approaches to human resources; rapid responses to changes in demand; the use of self-service technology and self-care; and the use of temporary additional facilities.