Healthcare as a Service: What We Can Learn From Other Industries

Why borrowing ideas from banking, aviation, and retail could transform patient care

Healthcare is often described as unique—and in many ways it is. It’s deeply personal, emotionally charged, and life-altering. But while its mission may be different, the way healthcare services are designed and delivered doesn’t have to remain so far behind other industries.

In fact, I believe healthcare has much to gain from borrowing industrial approaches that have already proven effective in improving performance, safety, and customer satisfaction elsewhere.

If Healthcare Were Like Other Industries…

The Institute of Medicine, in its landmark report “Best Care at Lower Cost,” offered a striking comparison:

If banking were like healthcare, an ATM withdrawal might take days—because records were misplaced or unavailable.
If homebuilding were like healthcare, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians would all use different blueprints, with little coordination.
If shopping were like healthcare, prices wouldn’t be posted, and the same product could cost wildly different amounts depending on who pays.
If automobile manufacturing were like healthcare, warranties wouldn’t exist—and factories wouldn’t care much about monitoring defects.
If airline travel were like healthcare, every pilot would design their own pre-flight safety check—or skip it altogether.

When we look at it this way, the inefficiencies of healthcare become startlingly clear.

What If Healthcare Adopted Best Practices From These Industries?

Imagine a healthcare system where:

Patient records are updated instantly and available across the continuum of care.
Care delivery is reliable at its core but personalized at the margins.
Patients and families are central to decision-making, not passive recipients.
Teams communicate in real time, with full transparency about actions and responsibilities.
Pricing is clear, consistent, and transparent for all participants.
Payments reward outcomes and value, not the sheer volume of services provided.
Errors are identified and corrected quickly, just like defects in manufacturing.
Results are routinely captured and used for continuous improvement, the way airlines and banks use data to get safer and faster every year.

This isn’t wishful thinking—it’s a blueprint for change.

Why This Matters

Healthcare doesn’t need to copy other industries wholesale. But if it can adapt their best practices, it could overcome some of its deepest inefficiencies while creating safer, more humane, and more sustainable systems.

Think about it: banking guarantees real-time data, aviation ensures safety through standardization, retail thrives on transparency, and manufacturing delivers quality by constantly monitoring and improving. Why should healthcare patients accept anything less?

Final Thoughts

Healthcare as a service is complex but not impossible to fix. The key lies in humility—being willing to learn from outside the sector, and courageous enough to implement proven approaches.

🌟 Now I’d love to hear from you:
Which industry do you think healthcare could learn the most from—banking, aviation, retail, or manufacturing?
And what specific practices would you like to see adopted in hospitals and clinics?

💬 Share your thoughts in the comments—I’m eager to hear your perspective and examples.

Source:

Best Care at Lower Cost, The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America (2013), The National Academy for Science, Engineering, Medicine.