LEAN Healthcare
Healthcare and the associated costs are a much debated subject. And the new healthcare law in the U.S. with billions of dollars in government spending over the next 10 years just adds to it.
Healthcare organizations already operate under extreme pressure to improve poor patient care quality, decrease rising costs and expand access to vital healthcare services. Revenues are dropping, reimbursement levels are declining and on top of that they have to deal with the realities of acute workforce shortages, rapid technological change, increasing service and delivery complexity, increasing government regulation and so much more.
To be successful in face of all these challenges, healthcare leaders cannot afford to manage their organizations as they have in the past. They must transform themselves into lean, patient-centered, healthcare enterprises in which all resources work in harmony to ensure that patients receive exactly what they need, in the right amount, exactly when they need it.
Operational Excellence is the key word. Many of the care providers have implemented cost cutting campaigns to maintain profitability. While these effortshave made a difference, profit margins continue to shrink from year to year. Pursuing a cost control strategy only gives diminishing returns. The largest cost savings are captured early on and after that additional savings are smaller and harder to come by.
In addition, healthcare is no longer simply about medicine and medical procedures; it is about quality service and patient care, efficient and effective patient treatment leading to increased patient share, reduced operating costs and higher operating margins. Lean Healthcare and Six Sigma support your efforts on mobilizing and empowering all the members of your organization and focusing them on building efficient, reliable healthcare processes.
How can some of the wastes defined in Lean Manufacturing be related to healthcare? Here are some examples:
Defects: Medication errors, wrong patient, redraws, wrong procedure, poor clinical outcomes
Over-Production: Blood draws done early to accommodate lab equipment and personnel, Testing & Treatment done to balance workload for hospital staff
Waiting: Patients awaiting bed assignments, patient awaiting discharge, physician awaiting patient lab test results
Transportation: Excessive travel required for samples & specimens to be analyzed, excessive transporting of patients for testing & treatment
Inventory: Lab samples and specimens batched for analysis, dictation ready for transcription, lab results awaiting distribution
Motion: Looking for patients, missing meds, missing charts, variation in procedures, sharing of equipment
Extra-Processing: Multiple bed moves, retesting, excessive paperwork
mtb International Consulting will guide leadership and line staff at hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, laboratories, blood centers, physician and dentist practices in the principles of process improvement delivering training and hands-on assistance.
