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Ford has been working with the renowned University Of Cologne Centre for Integrated Oncology (CIO) to find ways of bringing car-making best practice into hospitals, with the idea of making life easier for cancer patients and those treating them.
The idea came from Ford engineer Mike Butler, who's the director of quality for the massive Ford factory in Cologne, where the Fiesta is currently built. Diagnosed with colon cancer (he's thankfully now in remission) Butler realised that some of the system from the car plant could be applied to patient care and treatment.
"I spent five years in treatment rooms and thought about how I could make life easier for patients," said Butler. "There was a real lightbulb moment when I realised that many of the systems that ensure car plants run smoothly could be applied to the hospital. Now there is an ideas exchange that is benefitting patients today, and could also help the way we move tomorrow. The more we work together the more synergies we find between our work at Ford and the challenges faced in cancer research."
The collaboration between medical staff and car makers actually started back in 2008, and it has lead to the hospitals using Ford techniques such as coloured lines on floor which help to show people where they should be going, and large screen communication system to make it easier for staff to talk to each other from different, occasionally remote, parts of the building. The treatment rooms and nurses stations are now also more flexible, with moveable walls and dividers.
There's a reverse flow of knowledge and ideas too; the medical staff have been telling Ford how they use lateral thinking and untried ideas in the fight against cancer, and Ford is now applying some of those broad concepts to vehicle manufacture.
"Medicine is an ever-changing science where small changes have a huge impact on the lives of patients," said Prof Dr Michael Hallek, the director of the CIO - that has been repeatedly honoured by German Cancer Aid as the top oncological centre. "With Ford's help, we are making huge improvements that will benefit the lives and treatment of future patients for years to come. And hopefully, some of our methods of doing things will help Ford to develop what mobility might look like in the future."