Category: Healthcare

Like a detective, Pam Thomson probed the mysteries of CPT coding errors in the pulmonary medicine department at University of Virginia (UVA) Medical Center, looking for hard evidence of what went wrong and why. Were coding errors correlated with the time of day, day of the week, or workload? Was something amiss in the physician/coder […]

Before exploring the various ways Six Sigma is currently being used, we should set the stage and understand the challenging environment where this methodology is being put to the test, a relatively small, but growing segment of the healthcare industry. Healthcare today is a vast web of complexity and contradiction. It offers astounding advances in […]

Evidence pointing to the applicability of Six Sigma and related best practices within healthcare has been steadily mounting over the past few years. Primarily based on the implementation of the DMAIC process (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control), we’re seeing an ever-widening array of documented and publicized results… from improving turnaround time for patients to […]

The Case for Change In December 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report that made health care providers and consumers alike sit up and take notice. The study by the IOM estimates 98,000 people die every year in the United States from medical mistakes made by healthcare professionals. In addition to the troubling […]

With many issues facing the U.S. healthcare system the task of “fixing” it seems insurmountable, but the appropriate implementation With so many different issues facing the U.S. healthcare system the task of “fixing” it can seem insurmountable. Every healthcare executive knows the litany of challenges: rising costs, inadequate insurance coverage, capacity constraints, patient safety concerns, […]

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 […]

Six Sigma leaders from three of America’s premier healthcare institutions – The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Mayo Clinic and New York-Presbyterian Hospital – recently shared their experiences with Six Sigma. These institutions are applying the method in order to improve operations and, ultimately, patient care. They offered the following advice for hospitals considering deployments of their […]

Despite a new lab, Ephrata Community Hospital faced the challenge of meeting the goal of a 60-minute turnaround time for all stat labs. Thus the lab management team chose to learn to use the Lean methodology to improve its lab processes.

Until relatively recently, many quality professionals considered the term “Lean” to only be applicable to the manufacturing giants of industry. Lean, first created as a part of the Toyota Production System, is an operational approach and methodology embraced by world-class companies around the globe. With proven results, Lean has made its way into non-manufacturing industries, such as insurance, banking and even healthcare

Excessive waiting and poor customer service at a hospital’s labor and delivery triage area had existed for years. But with a knowledge of Six Sigma, the hospital’s management knew it did not need to continue unabated. A process improvement project team attacked the problem systematically and began resolving it in a matter of months. Here […]

Will Lean practices take root within an organization and lead to transformational change? That depends on the organization’s culture and the role that leadership plays. Within a traditionally structured organization, ideas and direction flow primarily from top to bottom, or executive to worker level. This may be expedient in some ways, but it also can […]

Process improvement teams at Virtua Health system’s 95-bed Virtua West Jersey Hospital Berlin achieve notable results by using Lean to make visual and operational improvements in the emergency department, operating room and central sterile supply.

As with most hospitals, labor is the largest budget expense at the Providence Alaska Medical Center (PAMC) in Anchorage. But benchmarking indicated that staff utilization at PAMC, a part of the Providence Health System, was above the 75th percentile of the national average. To remedy this, in October 2003, a multidisciplinary team (nursing, leadership, finance […]

New London Hospital (NLH), a rural community hospital in New Hampshire, had been facing some long-standing challenges. In the radiology department, workflow and patient flow were not operating smoothly. Communication with the emergency department regarding patient preparedness was unclear, so patients often arrived unprepared and confused. Through a recent consulting engagement, the hospital received a […]

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 […]

In an effort to reduce costs, improve patient care, maximize resources and thrive in a highly competitive environment, healthcare providers are moving with increasing speed toward digitization – creating an environment that at some point in the future could become completely filmless, paperless and wireless. One aspect of going digital involves the use of a […]

A patient management scorecard presents, in general, a comprehensive framework that helps healthcare managers to define strategies, track performance and provide information to show whether their institution is performing well in terms of its mission. By implementing this strategic management tool, hospitals can construct measures to aid performance measurements in areas essential to their strategies. […]

By Terra Vanzant-Stern Manufacturers face numerous challenges within their markets as the number of competitors grows and increasing material costs impact margins. Business methodologies such as Lean Six Sigma working in tandem with industry-specific approaches can increase the opportunity for success. An example of that is in the pharmaceutical industry, where an approach called process […]

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 […]

Personnel and Readiness Information Management (P&R IM), Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), led an in-depth analysis of the Health Treatment Record (HTR) life cycle management process. The HTR is the chronological documentation of medical, dental and mental health care received by a service member during the course of his or […]

Rising implant costs continue to impact hospitals across the nation. As technology expands, physicians are given new opportunities to try the most advanced implantable devices manufacturers have to offer. This was no different at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston, Texas, USA. The hospital has one of the largest cardiology programs in Houston offering complete […]

Making the decision to bring Six Sigma into an organization is the first step on a long journey. Although this decision has proven successful for a variety of industries (including healthcare), the best-laid plans may go awry if the focus is solely on the technical side, without considering the cultural and communication aspects of the […]