Healthcare platforming for healthcare service development in hospitals

The platforming concept has been successfully applied to develop diverse customized products in the manufacturing industries, in particular make-to-order (MTO) firms. In view of the need to have structured approaches to developing healthcare services, this study proposes to adopt the platforming concept in service development in hospitals. More specifically, it proposes healthcare platforms. As the initial efforts, this study (1) compares the similarities between hospitals and MTO firms, (2) presents a framework for planning healthcare platforms, and (3) discusses in detail a number of potential avenues for future research on healthcare platforming.