Ferrari Pit Stops Help Doctors

[Wizzo]

Research work with the Ferrari F1 team has helped doctors at a U.K. children's hospital completely transform their procedures during the critical period when a young patient is transferred from the operating room to a recovery room in the intensive care facility. The same work flow planning, minimizing of wasted motion, and intensive training that lets the Ferrari pit stop team compress their work on the car into a well-choreographed routine that takes just over four seconds has been successfully applied by Ferrari to a time and motion study at Greater St. Ormond Street children's hospital.

Ferrari's Nigel Stepney, race technical director, headed a Ferrari team that filmed and analyzed videos of the doctors at work and then developed pit-stop-like work flow and procedures with Professor Martin Elliot, head of cardiac surgery, and Dr. Allan Goldman, who directs pediatric intensive care. The restructured procedures are now part of the hospital's regular operations, and the innovative approach is soon to be published in the scientific literature.