The Biggest Medical Device: The Modern Hospital and How It Works

NCE 518 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The modern hospital is an extraordinarily complex environment comprising numerous interacting systems designed to facilitate safe, effective, and efficient medical care. While almost all physicians will spend part of their careers practicing within the hospital, few have more than a rudimentary understanding of the physical systems and infrastructure that support their work. Often, it is only when these systems malfunction or fail that we fully realize the extent of our dependence on our medical infrastructure. This course is designed to introduce future physicians to the principles of how the hospitals actually work. This understanding of how our work environment functions is of potential value to any student who anticipates spending significant time practicing in the hospital environment, from rounding on the wards to serving in senior leadership as a department chair or physician executive. Taught by the individuals and teams who actually operate and manage hospital systems, this course will be structured around unique on-site field trips to look "under the hood" at various systems at a major Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital, combined with didactic teaching to understand what students see during these visits.  Each session will focus on a different element or system within the hospital environment, from infrastructure and environmental systems (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, wastewater)  to operational support systems such as food service, supply management, and pharmacy services, to unique care environments such as operating rooms and emergency departments. Students completing this course will be able to function in the hospital with a unique understanding of how the physical and operations systems surrounding them work, develop valuable understanding of how to communicate and collaborate with the myriad professionals who keep hospital systems running, and how these systems and people enable modern medical care.