In the 21^st Century, hospitals have taken the shape of an industry; hence it is has now become a must to apply the industrial methods to the hospital.

“The same kind of management which permits a factory to give the fullest service and at a price so low as to be within the reach of every one’. (Henry Ford, My life and work)

Healthcare systems were never designed for efficiency and effectiveness, the way modern manufacturing and service industries have been. As a result, there is a tremendous amount of defects and waste in healthcare.

Healthcare professional should always keep in mind that healthcare is a healing service industry and their patients are customers. The patient is the center of the medical universe, around whom all activities revolve and towards whom all energies of healthcare professionals are directed. Our patients are not only our clients, but they are the most important element of our healthcare process. Hence, there is need to breakdown the traditional boundaries that separates physicians, hospitals, administrators, pharmacists technicians and nurses by shifting away from a culture of blame and by working together to systematically design safer more effective and efficient system. This can be achieved by implementing Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in Healthcare.

Lean Six Sigma: A Vision

• Empowered People Operating in a Culture and Climate of Creativity & Innovation
• Leading to constant elimination of waste and variation
• Thereby reducing cost, increased productivity and meeting Firefighting needs

Lean Six Sigma: What is it?

• Lean and Six Sigma are both process improvement methodologies
• Lean is about speed and efficiency -Visual management
• Six Sigma is about precision and accuracy – leading to data-driven decisions

Lean Six Sigma Requires Behavioral Change:

Lean Six Sigma Challenges Us to:

• Think Differently
• Work Differently
• Ask Questions and Challenge the Status Quo
• Make Decisions With Facts and Data
• Use New Principles, Tools and Methodologies

Basic Questions:

• What are the Patient needs?
• Does our service

Answer the Voice of the Customer

At a price he is willing to pay?

• How do we achieve them?

To Successfully Deploy Lean Six Sigma:

• Start with the Patient  … listen, listen, listen
• Leadership commitment and alignment … go beyond the words … (under promise and over deliver) change behavior

Create momentum for change

Develop need, vision and plan

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Repeatedly execute and assess

Develop necessary skill sets to obtain the desired future state at all levels of the organisation

• Involve Everyone:

Top Management

Senior Management

Middle Management

Front line People (They are the faces of the organization)

Lean Six Sigma Principles

• Specify value in the eyes of the customer
• Identify the value stream and eliminate waste / variation
• Make value flow smoothly at the pull of the customer  
• Involve, align and empower employees
• Continuously improve knowledge in pursuit of perfection

 The Healthcare profession is facing growing challenges:

• Cost of materials
• Staff shortages
• Increased demand
• Increased stress on their staff
  
• Greater potential for mistakes
• Increased dissatisfaction from patients/clients because of long wait times and poor service,
• Financial restraints from insurance companies and governments and
• Increased media attention and distractions

The Healthcare sector requires the ultimate in patient satisfaction purely by the nature of the service it provides. A large number of growing healthcare organisations are applying the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) principles to increase their effectiveness. The LSS approach focuses on following major objectives:

• Enhance Patient satisfaction thus delights them and their attendants
• Improve process and eliminate wasteful practices so that the defect level is less than 3.4 defects per million
• Improves staff satisfaction and safety
• Ultimate Goal is to increase ROI for the Organisation

LSS transforms people and when the transformation is completed properly it affects the organisation’s end-to-end processes, plus the culture. The positive and usually immediate impacts include the speed, cost and quality of service. Once LSS implementation is underway, the entire staff (doctors, nurses, technicians, support staff) and the patients, all ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the impact.

There is a huge shift in culture and thinking and everyone starts to work as a team and as part of the Value Stream not in department or silos. The stresses are removed and staff is able to focus on applying their skills instead of spending time on the non-value activities. The LSS principles can be applied to all the healthcare processes. Amazing results have been achieved in just a few weeks by eliminating wasteful activities that over time have become part of the everyday system/processes, freeing up time for staff to do real value added work. These improvements are beneficial to everyone:

• Patients
• Doctors
• Nurses
• Administrators

Healthcare is the perfect environment to implement Lean Six Sigma and streamline complex processes.