Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals: Simple Steps to Fast, Affordable, and Flawless Healthcare

CHAPTER 6Six Sigma for Hospitals

Every hospital has two “factories”:

1. A “good” factory that delivers patient care. In a hospital, this would be the emergency department (ED), operating room (OR), nursing units, lab, radiology, pharmacy, admissions, billing, and so on.

2. A hidden but expensive “fix-it” factory. This is the factory that cleans up all the medical mistakes, operational mistakes, and delays that occur in the main factory.

Hospital EDs experience repeat visits from the same patient in the same day. Doctors misdiagnose illnesses 15 percent of the time, according to one BusinessWeek article. If your hospital is typical, the fix-it factory is costing you $25 to $40 of every $100 you spend. If it costs $100 million to run your hospital, ...