Launching Lean/Six Sigma Training

Running any business is a constant balance between the quality of your goods, the cost to deliver and the overall satisfaction of those you serve. In the past, I have discussed some of our key process improvement initiatives.

Tomorrow, we are launching our LEAN/Six Sigma training starting with 20 employees across our system. Our Steering committee met yesterday and approved projects to improve processes including Patient Throughput (managing patients through our system of care), Hospital Acquired Infections, Surgery Start Times, Revenue Cycle and Sterile processing.

Thank you to Lindsay, Russ and Rachelle for your many hours of work leading to our launch tomorrow. All employees will receive standardized DMAIC format (1) to propose improvements to our delivery system.

Note:

According to Wikipedia.org:

(1) DMAIC

The DMAIC project methodology has five phases:

• Define the problem, the voice of the customer, and the project goals, specifically.
• Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.
• Analyze the data to investigate and verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered. Seek out root cause of the defect under investigation.

• Improve or optimize the current process based upon data analysis using techniques such as design of experiments, poka yoke or mistake proofing, and standard work to create a new, future state process. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability.
• Control the future state process to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Control systems are implemented such as statistical process control, production boards, and visual workplaces and the process is continuously monitored.

We will keep everyone posted on our progress. Please let us know of successful Lean / Six Sigma projects you have implemented.