Putting it altogether: Improving performance in heart failure outcomes

As systems evolve over time, their natural tendency is to become increasingly more complex. Studies in the field of complex systems have generated new perspectives on management in social organizations such as hospitals. Much of this research appears as a natural extension of the cross-disciplinary field of systems theory. This is the ninth in a series of articles applying complex systems science to the traditional management concepts of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling. This article illustrates how theoretical principles of complex systems discussed in previous articles can be applied in an actual performance improvement study conducted in a community hospital.