Page 119 - Lean six sigma demystified

98 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

Mass General’s Proton Beam facility was fully booked. Simple analysis found
that patients requiring anesthesia had to wait for an anesthesiologist when they
arrived for an appointment. By simply booking anesthesia patients as a group
and scheduling an anesthesiologist for that time period, patient volume went
from 29 to 39 a day (a 33% increase in throughput) without adding any hours
of operation.
Want a faster imaging department? Use the tools of Lean to reduce delay and
accelerate patient flow.

A Faster Lab in Five Days

Every hospital ED depends on lab work for 70 patients out of every 100 (most
urban EDs handle around 100 patients a day). While the actual test may take
only 6 to 12 minutes, the elapsed time from doctor’s order to finished report
can be an hour or more. Some of the samples get misplaced and are further
delayed.
One 2400-sq-ft hospital lab decided to reduce turnaround times; this would
reduce ED turnaround times and the length of stay in the nursing units. Using
pedometers, they tracked their travel time for a week. They conducted what’s
known as a 5S (sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain) to clean the area
of 10 years’ worth of clutter (4 hours), then mapped the value stream (4 hours)
and redesigned the work flow (4 hours).
Using the advanced tools of Lean—Post-it notes and a flip chart—the lab
team was able to redesign the lab to reduce

• Staff movement 54% (goal 30%)
• Floor space 17% (goal 10%)
• Phlebotomist travel 55% (21,096 ft ~ 4 mi ~ 1.5 FTE)
• Tech travel 40% (2304 ft; 0.15 FTE over three shifts)
• Sample travel 55% 23,400 ft and 7 hours of delay per 24 hours

Some changes could be implemented immediately, others required coordina-
tion to move machinery and recalibrate. The lab got a lot faster with less than
2 days of effort.
Want a faster lab? Use the tools of Lean to slash turnaround times.