From Theme Parks to Seamless Care: What Healthcare Can Learn from Disney

Recently, I had the opportunity to tour a local hospital that has the distinction of being both academic medical center and safety-net hospital. We spent a lot of time examining patient flow and emergency department overcrowding—and I couldn’t help but think about Disney World.

Disney is a master of movement—orchestrating guest flow through its parks so that everyone gets to the right ride, restaurant, or show with minimal frustration. For many years, patient experience gurus lauded this model for its highlighting the experience while waiting. The waiting room is an experience, the exam room is another, and then the interactions with the care providers, all of them contributing to the overall experience especially in doctor’s offices. But, lets get real— no one enjoys the TVs playing HGTV non-stop for hours on end. I could go on forever on my distaste for doctor’s office waiting rooms, but it seems hospitals are doing much of the same.

On my visit, I learned of several patient flow innovations:

• A patient flow coordination room, what they called an “air traffic control room” that tracks every patient—incoming, outgoing, and waiting.
• Overflow areas designed to help absorb surges in emergency visits, with plans for even more capacity.
• A discharge lounge which holds patients who are medically ready to leave but waiting for transportation.

There’s an entire logistics operation designed to move patients efficiently. The ethos, if I understand it correctly, is sound and perhaps even noble. Patients who need care should be able to access care and if there is a patient that no longer needs care or can be better taken care of at another level, we need to move them along to open up space for the next patient. But here’s the thing: everywhere is full at every level.

We have pioneered systems to improve intake, and still, patient overflow is an issue. Every innovation that I have seen to address patient flow ends up butting up against the same reality, at some point, there is nowhere else to send the patient. We have organized too many of our systems in this country for the next patient, and, far too often, we have done so at the expense of the patient in front of us.

And I’ll say it again, because it is worth repeating, the queue is not the patient.

Disney Wants to Keep People Moving. Healthcare Shouldn’t.

Disney’s goal is to keep you flowing through different experiences—moving from ride to ride, maximizing time in the park. Hospitals should have the opposite goal:

• 🚫 Minimize unnecessary patient movement
• 🚫 Keep care as close to the patient as possible
• 🚫 Ensure every transfer serves a real purpose

What Healthcare Can Learn from Disney+

Think about how Disney changed retail strategies.

• Disney Stores once brought the magic to malls
• Now, Disney+ brings the magic directly to homes

Healthcare is undergoing a similar transformation:
✔ Telehealth eliminates the need for travel
✔ Home-based care brings services to patients
✔ Hospital-at-home models provide inpatient-level care outside traditional walls

Yet, inside hospitals, we still shuffle patients around— transferring them between rooms, waiting areas, departments, and even hospitals. To what end? What is the meaning behind the movement? Is it for patient’s needs or someone else’s?

What If We Built Minimally Disruptive Hospitals?

There’s a concept called “Minimally Disruptive Medicine” that focuses on reducing the disruption of medical visits—especially for elderly patients who rely on caregivers for transportation and support.

What if we applied this thinking inside hospitals?

• Fewer unnecessary transfers
• More bedside diagnostics and treatment
• Care moving to patients, instead of patients moving to care

I am not sure what it would look like exactly, but I have an image of care providers moving through a patient room rather than patients moving through the hospital. For the clinically inclined, what if instead of being the blood that pumps through the hospital, patients were the heart. I encourage us all to think more critically about how disruptively care is currently modeled. Because in the end, patients are not guests in our hospitals.

We are guests in their lives.

What Do You Think?

Are we designing hospitals for operational efficiency instead of patient dignity? How can we make hospital care less disruptive and more patient-centered?

Drop your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear your perspective.

#PatientExperience #HealthcareLeadership #MinimallyInvasiveCare #HospitalFlow #PatientFirst #Disney #HealthcareInnovation