Abstract

Manish Bhardwaj, co-founder of Innovators in Health, is contemplating setting up Aahan, a community based tuberculosis (TB) control program in rural India. The case describes TB diagnosis and treatment in the public and private healthcare sectors in India and the attendant challenges. A number of candidate interventions aimed at improving the existing system of healthcare delivery are presented at the end of the case, each one of which could form the core of Aahan. Students are encouraged to use operations management principles to quantify the potential public health benefits and costs of these interventions and prioritize them accordingly. Key concepts include process flow mapping, flow balance, Little's Law and selection of appropriate process measures based on the strategic objective of the process.

Learning Objective

1. Illustrate process analysis through a public health application: (i) Process flow diagrams, (ii) Quantifying performance with appropriate metrics, and (iii) Little’s law;
2. Quantify the link between operational changes in healthcare delivery and  health outcomes via operational interventions; 3. Sensitize students to the interdependence between the following aspects of healthcare delivery in a resource-limited setting: (i) Public and private systems, (ii) Prevention, diagnosis and treatment.