Page 220 - Lean six sigma demystified

198 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

do a better job. Train your customers on how to work with you more effectively.
It will take some time, but the savings are worth it. And savings translate into
more business and greater profits. What have you got to lose?

Bar Codes Bust Medication Errors

Good News: When the VA adopted bar codes for patients and medicines, med-
ication errors plummeted. By bar-coding medications and patients and using
handheld scanners, clinicians can ensure that the right patient gets the right
dosage of the right medication at the right time.
Bad News: An estimated 7,000 people die in hospitals of medication errors. One
out of every 14,000 transfusions get the wrong blood resulting in at least 20 deaths
each year. Only about 125 of the nation’s 5,000 hospitals use bar codes now.
Good News: The FDA now requires bar codes on all medications.
Bad News: The national average for wristband inaccuracies in hospitals is 3%.
(If you get the band wrong, everything else can go wrong too.)
Sadly, safety technology isn’t a big diagnostic machine that generates reve-
nue; it’s a protective device that reduces the cost of treatment and litigation.
The good news is that the technology is out there to make our health care safer
than ever before. All we have to do is embrace it.

The High Cost of Bad Data

You may remember when the speed limits were lowered to 55 to “save lives.”
Yet a study by the Cato Institute found just the opposite: The fatality rate on
the nation’s roads declined for a 35-year period excluding the period from 1976

to 1980 when the speed limit was 55. After the speed limit was raised in 1995,
the fatality rate dropped to the lowest in recorded history. There were also
400,000 fewer injuries.
Furthermore, there’s no evidence that states with higher speed limits had
increased deaths. States with speed limits of 65 to 75 saw a 12% decline in fatali-
ties. States with a 75 mph speed limit saw over a 20% decline in fatality rates.

Wrong Root Cause

What does this data suggest? Higher speed limits weren’t the cause of highway
fatalities. For those of us who can remember the seventies, you may have owned
a Fix or Repair Daily (FoRD) or some other clunker. The main reason that the