Matt Salefski’s Post

Three random observations on the similarities between the supply chain and getting your gallbladder removed. Over the weekend, my doctor told me that I needed to get my gallbladder removed. There aren’t many useless things in your body but your gallbladder is one of them. 1) I was scheduled to go into the operating room at 1:30, until my operation was “bounced” for a more urgent patient (yeah, right, they just paid more). So I didn’t get into the OR until 4:30. I asked about detention but was denied. 2) While I was waiting, I could track the other surgeries in progress. There’s literally a board that shows all of the patients and their current status. I asked the nurse how that data gets into the system, and, just like in too many instances in freight, there’s a nurse manually entering the data manually. No ELD or GPS. No geofences. 3) Finally, just like in freight, my needs as a patient are 24/7. That means there are different people taking care of me throughout the day/night and they need to communicate with each other about what’s going on. I think I saw a total of 10 different nurses and doctors over my 36-hour stay in the hospital.