Lean Implementation
Because of the complexity of the health care system, processes have often been driven by internal customers — physicians, hospitals, insurers, government, payers. Now due to rising costs, it is critically important that value be defined by the primary customer: the patient.
More than ever, leaders in healthcare today must find ways to apply lean innovation principles as a means of producing goods and delivering services that creates value for the patient with the minimum amount of waste and the maximum degree of quality and safety.
Lean innovation begins with driving out waste so that all work adds value and serves the patient’s needs. Identifying value-added and non-value-added steps in every process is the beginning of the journey toward continuous improvement.
Tools to Facilitate Process Improvement
Value Stream Maps (VSM). A value stream is all the actions (both value-added and non-value-added) currently required bringing a product (blood draw, patient discharge, patient meals, patient x-ray, etc.) through the main flows essential to every product. A VSM takes into account the activities that make up a process and the management and information systems that support the basic process.
Benefits of Value Stream Maps
- Identifies the sources of waste in the process
- Forms the basis of an implementation plan
- Visualizes more than just the single-process level
- Shows the linkage between information flow and patient/staff flow
- Makes decisions about the flow apparent so they can be discussed
- Ties together process improvement techniques preventing isolated islands of improvement
Example of Lean Innovation Results in Healthcare
- Redeployed staff in several areas saving the equivalent of 33 FTEs
- Saved $154,000 in the Catheterization Lab supply procurement processes
- Reduced accounts receivable by 12 days equating to about $12 million in cash flow
To Get Started Ask Yourself Three Questions
What am I trying to improve?
How will I know that a change is an improvement?
What changes can I make that will result in improvement?
To learn more call John Bentley, 256.612.0015 or email john@power2transform.com.