Category: Case Studies

The quality of environmental hygiene in hospitals is under increasing scrutiny from both healthcare providers and consumers because the prevalence of serious infections due to multidrug-resistant pathogens has reached alarming levels. The transfer of gram-positive bacteria, particularly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), among patients is a growing concern. One critical factor for […]

In 2006, the board, administration and staff at Louisiana’s Thibodaux Regional Medical Center (TRMC) decided their operating room (OR) suites represented an opportunity for improvement. Rising demand, costs and competition were all signals that the hospital would need to either invest in expansion or operational efficiency. Taking the less glamorous and more difficult path of […]

Since 2001, Thibodaux Regional Medical Center (TRMC) in Louisiana has applied Six Sigma and change management methods to a range of clinical and operational issues. One project that clearly aligned with the hospital’s strategic plan was an initiative to reduce nosocomial or hospital-acquired pressure ulcers, because this is one of the key performance metrics indicating […]

Medication reconciliation – the process of comparing a patient’s medication orders with all of the medications he or she has been taking – can be difficult. Lack of patient knowledge regarding medication details, multiple care providers, multiple sources obtaining different medication lists for the same patient and new Joint Commission requirements all contribute to the difficulty. Hospitals […]

Six Sigma’s positive impact on manufacturing and product quality environments is well known and, without a doubt, has been proven by countless early and present practitioners. The method’s usefulness in improving transactional processes even in manufacturing businesses, however, is not always so well accepted. At Cabot Microelectronics Corporation, the business forecasting process was one that […]

Many processes and supporting functions operate in call centers…planning, staff scheduling, call routing, after-call processing and reporting. However, the single most important process in a call center – the one repeated thousands of times a day and the one most in need of improvement – is an agent handling an inbound or outbound call. Find Out More […]

Employees knew that the service in their third-party call center had deteriorated in recent years. Their job was to handle queries from independent business owners about financial services offered by the call center’s client. As in many call centers, the job was considered highly stressful because of expected response times and resolution. Initially, no one […]

Inventory takes up a significant amount of cash flow at IBM and many other companies. Due to fast depreciation in technology products, machines that are inventoried are not worth as much as they age. To combat this loss in value, practitioners at an IBM warehouse conducted a Six Sigma project to reduce their hardware inventory. […]

In 2004, a small and relatively young technology company (7,500 employees and an annual revenue of $2 billion) implemented the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, or what is usually referred to as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). In an effort to be fully compliant the company identified and initiated more than […]

Orthopedic and neurological spine surgery represents a competitive and profitable business for many healthcare organizations. Expanding this particular service line and ensuring efficiency in the operating room (OR) are among the strategic initiatives at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston, Texas, U.S.A., one of 16 hospitals in the Memorial Hermann system. Surgeons at the hospital […]

It is a common problem. Every year, hospitals lose millions of dollars when items used in the course of a patient’s care somehow slip through the system without ever being charged or reimbursed. At Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, a Six Sigma project team decided to look at the opportunities related to patient charge capture. […]

Like most healthcare providers, Doctors Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, USA, has struggled with familiar issues related to quality, resource constraints and ensuring optimal, accessible services for the community. Implementing Six Sigma has allowed the hospital to begin winning the battles with these issues. In 2004, the hospital’s leadership team decided to launch a new initiative […]

In the 1990s, the teller counter was the primary customer-facing area in the financial service industry, and so improvement efforts were leveraged in this arena. With increased improvements in technology and online banking utilization, however, process improvement efforts have shifted to internal areas. Yet companies must realize that even though customers are becoming more self-reliant […]

The current ISO 14001:2004 standard for environmental management systems has explicit requirements for defining and establishing objective targets and measures as part of an organization’s commitment to sound environmental management. Meeting these standards can be made easier when Six Sigma is applied in complement to an organization’s environmental management system. The presence of a robust […]

An international bank with 50 branches in Germany and approximately 300 employees decided in 2003 to adopt Six Sigma in all its business units in Europe. It then set out to use Six Sigma to implement one of its priority business strategies – significantly grow its car loan business in the next two years. The […]

The increased demand and limited supply of fossil fuels has signified the importance of energy efficiency and conservation across the world. Energy resourcefulness has come to the forefront in both federal and private organization’s policies and practices. Many organizational standards and procedures aim to minimize the use of energy, thereby protecting the environment. Various federal […]

Process Improvement Drives Greater Efficiency and Higher Satisfaction Delays are common within the perioperative environment. Lengthy turnover times between surgical cases can impact surgeon satisfaction and timely access to services. At Louisiana’s Thibodaux Regional Medical Center (TRMC), surgeons expressed frustration with the length and variability of operating room (OR) turnover time (T0T). Maximizing efficiency in […]

The healthcare industry is going through mergers and acquisitions and facing new economic struggles. As hospitals realize the need to consolidate resources regionally, a big challenge takes shape: handling the information necessary to manage cash flow efficiently. Cash flow management is vital for hospital systems to sustain their daily operations. Our team used DMAIC to […]

All product manufacturers are being pushed to produce the best quality products without exceeding budget. Effective resource management can be instrumental in achieving this goal. A particular textile processing mill, which dyes and prints handloom fabric predominantly used in school uniforms, decided to follow the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) approach to reduce its […]

As quality professionals, it is easy to become absorbed in day-to-day professional business roles: improving the quality of products or services, increasing productivity, enhancing profits, lowering costs, raising customer satisfaction and so on. Sometimes, however, it is important to pause and ask ourselves a fundamental question: How are we improving quality in our communities? For […]

A common problem encountered in Lean, Six Sigma and TQM implementation is performance deterioration after the completion and handover of a breakthrough improvement. This can happen despite installation of control mechanisms to monitor ongoing performance. In this case study, a financial services company with a national sales network had already begun addressing concerns about its […]

A lengthy and inefficient process for discharging in-patients is a common concern of hospitals, as well as patients and their families. A solution to that problem can be found in the application of Lean Six Sigma methodology.

Competition in the outpatient imaging center market is intense. New imaging centers are springing up everywhere. Faced with decreasing reimbursements, ever-changing technology and the expectation of spa-like atmospheres, how can an outpatient imaging center remain profitable? The answer lies with the customer. Having a pulse on the customer experience and continually eliciting and acting on […]

In a data-rich environment like insurance, it is often easier to quantify opportunities associated with speed than it is in other industries. A global financial services company knew it took them 18 months to get new nationwide variable annuity products to the market. The company’s vast database and proven models allowed them to estimate that […]