Lean Sigma--Rebuilding Capability in Healthcare

Book description

Drive Lean Sigma Performance Improvement into Any Hospital or Healthcare Environment

“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) looks like it is around to stay. It will require hospitals and other healthcare organizations to become ruthlessly efficient to survive reimbursement rate reductions. Even if ACA fell, managed care organizations have caught on. They will leverage patient volume to drive reimbursement rates steadily down. Medicare and Medicaid will follow. Lean Sigma may not be the only way healthcare organizations will survive, but it’s a proven solution. In Lean Sigma–Rebuilding Capability in Healthcare, Dr. Wedgwood has presented a roadmap to successful implementation of Lean Sigma.”

–Richard H. Allen, Dr.P.H., Allen & Allen Consulting, LLC

Lean Sigma, widely proven in other industries, can offer even greater value in healthcare. In this guide, Ian Wedgwood walks you through all leadership aspects associated with planning, executing, sustaining, or reinvigorating Lean Sigma in your hospital, system, or clinic.

Drawing on his extensive experience helping healthcare organizations improve, Wedgwood explains Lean Sigma without “stat speak.” Focusing on care providers’ unique challenges, he offers a practical roadmap for making Lean or Six Sigma work. He demonstrates it through real case studies, illuminating key facets of change that are too often ignored.

Coverage includes

• How failure points in conventional change methods prevent performance improvement

• Lean Sigma’s structured change approach: why infrastructure and sequencing matter so much

• Integrating Lean Sigma with strategy and operations

• Elevating individual process performance

• Launching a Lean Sigma program or revitalizing a stalled initiative

• Learning from experience, and increasing program maturity

Whatever your Lean Sigma leadership role–from patient-facing staff to senior executive to performance improvement specialist–this guide gives you an indispensable foundation for success.

Table of contents

  1. About This eBook
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Praise for Lean Sigma—Rebuilding Capability in Healthcare
  5. Dedication Page
  6. Contents
  7. Preface
    1. Overview
    2. Who This Book Is For
    3. How to Use the Book
    4. Acknowledgments
  8. About the Author
  9. 1. Existing Change Models: Why the Traditional Healthcare Models Are Struggling
    1. Traditional Change Models
    2. Disparate Change Groups
    3. Uncontained Change
    4. No Standard Change Approach
    5. Tools Focus
    6. Reliance on Benchmarking
    7. Changes Are Not Based on Data, Good Data, or the Right Data
    8. Changes Made Based on Symptoms, Not Causes
    9. Systems versus Processes
    10. Focus on People, Not on Process
    11. Lack of Context for Solutions
    12. Adding versus Subtracting (Patching)
    13. Poor Implementation
    14. No Emphasis on Control
    15. Management versus Leadership
    16. Summary
  10. 2. Structuring Change: Program Infrastructure
    1. Lean Sigma: The Program
    2. The Steering Group
    3. Setting the Program Direction
    4. The Fit with Existing Initiatives
    5. Shaping Projects
    6. Focus on Process
    7. Breakthrough Change
    8. Project Tiers
    9. Identifying Opportunities
    10. Characterizing Projects (Preliminary Project Chartering)
    11. Setting Goals
    12. Prioritizing Action
    13. Program and Project Roles
    14. Program Tracking, Reporting, and Ongoing Management
    15. Summary
  11. 3. Lean Sigma Roadmap: The Anatomy of a Project
    1. Lean Sigma Project Roadmap
    2. Define
    3. Measure
    4. Analyze
    5. Improve
    6. Control
    7. The Lean Sigma Roadmap: Why It Works
    8. Standardization Projects
    9. Kaizen (Accelerated Change) Events
    10. Summary
  12. 4. Application to Real Life: Project Case Examples
    1. Case 1: CT Capacity and Throughput
    2. Case 2: Reduce Discharged, Not Final Billed (DNFB)
    3. Case 3: Radiology Denials
    4. Case 4: Behavioral Health Discovery
    5. Case 5: Medication Delivery
    6. Case 6: Registration Standardization
    7. Case 7: Inpatient Admission Standardization
    8. Case 8: Physician Office Standardization
    9. Case 9: Surgery Capacity and Throughput
    10. Case 10: Emergency Department Throughput
    11. Case 11: Inpatient Placement
    12. Case 12: New Emergency Department Design
  13. 5. Commencing the Journey
    1. I. Program Vision and Launch
    2. II. Creating Program Infrastructure
    3. III. Developing Organizational Competence
    4. IV. Transforming Processes
    5. V. Stabilization and Performance Management
    6. VI. Globalization
  14. Index

Product information

  • Title: Lean Sigma--Rebuilding Capability in Healthcare
  • Author(s): Ian D. Wedgwood
  • Release date: March 2015
  • Publisher(s): Pearson
  • ISBN: 9780133992045