Page 111 - Lean six sigma demystified

90 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

With all of the hoopla about health care reform, there’s one huge missing piece;
health care is going to have to get dramatically faster, better, and cheaper to
help pay for the changes. Each of the nation’s 5700+ hospitals must find ways
to cut millions of dollars in unnecessary costs over the next decade. This may
sound difficult considering that half of all hospitals lose money. Most hospitals
exist on a 4% to 5% margin. But Lean can help hospitals start getting faster,
better, and cheaper in just a few days.
One of the key principles of Lean thinking is to eliminate delays that con-
sume up to 95% of the total cycle time (57 minutes per hour). If you’ve ever
been a patient in a hospital emergency room or nursing unit bed, you know
there are lots of delays. Over the years, health care has made tremendous strides
in reducing cycle time in various aspects of care. Outpatient surgeries are one
example: Arrive in the morning and leave in the afternoon. No bed required.
But there is still room for improvement.

Goal: Accelerate the Patient’s Experience of Health Care

Over the last decade I’ve consulted with many hospitals on all kinds of projects.
Perhaps the most powerful tool that can be applied immediately to start slash-
ing cycle times, medical mistakes, and cost is Lean. And it doesn’t have to take
forever. With the right focus and the right people in the room, it only takes a
few days to find ways to speed up any health care process in a way that will
reduce errors and boost profits.
Every hospital seems to have the same problem: patient flow. This shows up
in many ways.

• Patient dissatisfaction

• In the ED (emergency department)
• Divert (no ambulances due to overcrowding)
• Patient boarding (holding patients until a bed is available)
• LWOBS (Leaving without being seen)
• Turnaround times of 4 hours or more

• In the OR (Operating Room) delays, turnaround times
• Imaging (i.e., X-ray) delays, turnaround times
• Lab (blood, chemistry, urine, microbiology analysis) delays, turnaround
times