Healthcare resource management: integrating apples and oranges.

Over the past several years this journal has published numerous articles on the merits and benefits of effective resource management. Independently, these articles have supported the value of effective supply and materials management, management engineering and system restructuring, and clinical resource management in being able to save healthcare dollars by designing and injecting efficiencies into the healthcare delivery system. While most of these resource management activities have utilized very similar strategies (see Table 1 "Tools For Improvement"), much of the process revision and progress has remained within the walls of their own individual disciplines. Any widescale attempts to try to fully integrate all of these activities have been hampered by the intricacies of trying to mix apples and oranges. Despite these individual departmental gains, the challenge to conserve healthcare costs continues to permeate throughout all levels of the organization, and institutions are finally beginning to recognize the added value of merging these activities into a more centralized coordinated approach to resource management. Presented is a discussion on the potential value of developing a well-focused, integrated resource management program.