Hospital Capacity Heroes and Our Travel Story~ Patient Flow and Scheduling

Ideas and Inspiration Around Key Healthcare Challenges‏

Let's face it, air travel with 3 small children is a challenge, and often a nightmare.
On my family's return trip from our overseas trip, the odds were stacked against us; our plane got delay in our departure destination for who knows for what reason for 4 hours.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, sailing through security. We boarded and settled, not a small feat for the 6 of us, and we pushed away from the gate. A moment later we were informed that we would have to wait out for an unexpected delay with the aircraft's arrival- and since the expected flight was coming in international as well, we knew it would be a while. 3 hours later (my snack pile consumed, books read and reread, and my bags of tricks depleted) the floor crew announced, "flight is ready for boarding."
The minute we cleared the customs upon our arrival to Newark we crossed the baggage claim , I dropped every child, stroller and bag into a pile next to my husband and ran (all personal pride flying out the window when faced with a night in a hotel with 3 kids) to the instructed re booking agent.
When I reached the desk (I had secured spot 1 out of what looked like a 2 hours line forming behind me), I met my hero. She was the supervisor who was hovering over the booking agents as they re booked a plane full of cranky passengers. She took pity on me and my brood, and continued to prod the booking agent to find space on a flight that was leaving in next day early evening. As the agent continued to insist that there was no room, the supervisor told him to bump 2 people to first class, move passenger X somewhere else and put us on the highest priority for standby. Had she not been there, working the system, problem solving in real time, and forcing the agent to get creative, we undoubtedly would have been spending the night in a hotel room.
We did get on the flight (which also got cancelled due to weather but not the point). But as I waited, I couldn't help but think of Bed Managers in hospitals everywhere who, like the airlines supervisor, pull off heroic efforts in managing their own capacity every day. We all know that managing the flow of patients in an efficient manner, despite any challenge, is crucial to the success of the system. The bed managers, in conjunction with staff and nurses, put forth amazing efforts to place patients, work schedules, and negotiate with floors ... all day, every day. They manage special requests, emergencies, and flows in demand and, like my supervisor hero, they make it their personal mission to do what is best for the patient.
But what if there was a different way to manage the flow of patients that didn't require bed managers to make dozens of phone calls and touch every bed placement? What if the daily and weekly flow of patients was predictable? What if the right beds were ready when the beds were actually needed?

And to my hero at Newark, thank you. In all my years of air travel, I have never seen a more determined and thoughtful act of customer service.