A hospital is not just a factory, but a complex adaptive system—implications for perioperative care.

Mahajan A, Islam SD, Schwartz MJ, Cannesson M. Anesth Analg. 2017;125:333-341.

Standardization and manufacturing-focused interventions in health care may fail to consider the complexity of the surgical environment and the need to adapt in response to rapid changesduring procedures. This commentary explores the application of factory approaches and complex adaptive systems in perioperative care improvement and provides two case examples to illustrate how applying such constructs resulted in effective surgical process redesign.

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