Understand why your healthcare firm should consider using these tools and what they can do for your Healthcare Quality of Care or Service efforts.

In today's environment of constant change and increasing expectations of better service at optimum costs, healthcare industry leaders must constantly strive to improve the quality of care, while reducing cost of care – two seemingly conflicting objectives!

Knowledge

in

Motion

Knowledge

in

Motion

Operational Excellence

Lean/Six Sigma

How does a healthcare practice deal with the seemingly conflicting goals of creating an environment of excellence, cost containment, and high quality patient treatment at one and the same time?

The use of a pair of tools – Lean systems thinking and Six Sigma variability reduction – provide a framework for achieving these seemingly opposing objectives.

A concise discussion of these tools would imply that:

> Lean Systems provides an structured tool for identifying and eliminating non-value added activity and other waste in any workflow and reduces cycle time in any system or set of work flows.

> Six sigma tools help identify and reduce causes of variability in a systematic way.

Six Sigma solves quality and reliability problems in the delivery of products and services by following a well-defined, five-step process that relies on the collection and analysis of statistical data. The basic process steps are:

• Define:  Determine what is wrong; set goals for improvement.

• Measure:  Set a benchmark for tracking progress.

• Analyze:  Seek out the cause of the problem.

• Improve:  Fix the cause.

• Control:  Make the fix permanent.

Healthcare Synergetics provides a combination of online and onsite training to provide the training necessary to improve the reliability of your work processes and assure consistent quality effectiveness of your products and services. Based on our experiences, Healthcare Synergetics strongly urges that Six Sigma and Lean Systems tools be used in an appropriate combination.

Lean systems thinking focuses on the elimination of 8 types of waste

Simplified Lean Implementation Model

Healthcare Synergetics uses a combination of training and deployment to take advantage of the combined power of Six Sigma and Lean Systems implementation.

A key tenet of the Lean Six Sigma tools is choosing the appropriate metrics. The following provides a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches for determining a healthcare provider's journey to a well functioning Lean enterprise:

Traditional – Very little awareness of this practice; sporadic improvement activities may be underway in a few areas.

Adopter – General but limited awareness; informal and piecemeal approach deployed in a few areas focusing on specific projects with varying degrees of effectiveness and sustainability.

Performer – A systematic approach is deployed in all appropriate areas, functions and processes, with appropriate metrics; varying stages of implementation across most areas, exhibiting varying degrees of success; some deployments are still in relatively early stages.

Reformer – Ongoing deployment, refinement and continuous improvement of applicable practices across the enterprise, facilitated by the use of appropriate metrics; exhibits mature well-developed approach.

Transformer – Exceptional, well-defined, innovative approach is fully deployed across the extended enterprise; recognized as world-class best practice.

For an external view of your firm's current state, and a proposed future state of capability, contact Healthcare Synergetics for a no risk assessment.

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