Operational restructuring for patient focused care: the facility implications.

In the typical hospital, customer service lags behind clinical care. In spite of the promised efficiencies of quality control/quality assurance, costs have continued to soar, whilst the concept of patient focused care has been overlooked. More than 50% of costs are accounted for at 'operational level', due to historical trends towards centralization of ancillary services. Operational restructuring to emphasize 'patient focused' delivery of care implies a number of facility changes which are described below.