Opinion: The airline industry needs some disaster management lessons. Health care can help
People like to say health care should be more like the airline industry. This summer flipped that on its head.
The airline industry is often held up as a model of operational excellence — one that the health care industry would do well to emulate.
This summer, however, I was surprised to find myself in circumstances in which the reverse seemed true. Like thousands of travelers across the nation, I spent several days in July stranded in an airport with multiple canceled flights, lost luggage, and a whole lot of uncertainty about what to do with my hotel reservations. Customer service lines, overwhelmed by the surge of displaced travelers, snaked a quarter-mile down the terminal. Baggage claim was pandemonium — luggage strewn across the floor and carousels, a few employees frantically trying to process new claims. In short, it was a disaster.
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