Lean, though it found its roots in a manufacturing environment, has proved particularly adaptable to service-based organisations and industries like health care. At the core of Lean is a focus on the Customer. Lean endeavors to have the organisation function on the strategy of continually bettering value to a customer.
Generally Lean Six Sigma is accurately identified with removing the various types of waste within processes that ordinarily are not productive and non-value adding, yet Lean should not be regarded as merely a tactic or process to decrease costs; rather it's a method of thinking strategically about the processes that constitute the organization and the way they take care of the customer’s needs.
Lean Six Sigma’s Roots and Progression into Health care
Lean in healthcare should not be discussed without first acknowledging the background from which the concept of “Lean” comes about - organizational/process improvement techniques. The modern history of improvement methodologies can be followed back to Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin with its interchangeable parts, to Henry Ford and his just in time auto manufacturing strategy, and Alfred P. Sloan at General Motors. Each individual made contributions and refined the concepts and methodologies that made it possible for manufacturers to give a product that is valuable to a customer. Other key events included early time and motion scientific studies by Frederick Taylor, human motivation and attitude studies by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and applied statistics from W. Edwards Deming. Deming’s research contributed deeply to Toyota's Production System, which is where Lean principles were formulated. Further learning and innovations to organizational effectiveness are present in Zero Defects, Quality Circles, Total Quality Management, and Business Process Reengineering, and others.
Lean has helped force a reevaluation of who the customer actually is in health care. Not surprisingly common sense says the customer is the patient, but if we examine the myriad of very complicated processes available and the problems health care organizations and providers face, you realize that quite often the patient is more at the effect of the system than the beneficiary of a satisfying experience. Thankfully, some healthcare organizations have reoriented themselves into becoming genuinely patient-focused and by making use of lean principles, are leading to fantastic enhancements in productivity, cost reductions, patient flow, patient safety and quality, inventory and space needs, and best of all, overall patient outcomes.
The elemental concept of Lean Six Sigma is to get rid of the “8 Wastes” seen among all organizations.
Often in the healthcare industry, services can take a remarkably roundabout path in getting delivered to the customer. Processes are frequently made up of “work arounds” that were used because they compensated for a particular failure at a specific point in time - and it became part of “the way it's done around here.” As processes become more elaborate, they usually tend to end up being even further away from the customer, and there are more handoffs and errors. The challenge that Lean asks is: “Is there another way to go from here to there?” By understanding the 8 Wastes and how they show up in healthcare environments, organizational leaders can get started reviewing the processes as part of the entire service driven by the “pull” of the customer, and can begin to optimize the value stream that delivers on an organization’s guarantees.
Lean’s Significant Advantage to Health care and its Leaders
Lean offers excellent power to health care leaders to manage the ongoing escalation in costs due to wasteful methods and by providing best practices and standard methods of doing work in various environments. There are essential concepts in Lean Thinking that we will explore in forthcoming articles. As based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, essential areas that should be addressed:
Leadership: Implementing the changes to use Lean Thinking aren't for those who are faint of heart. It cannot be achieved piecemeal, but must be a whole system strategy.
Process: An ideal process creates exactly the ideal amount of value for the customer. Each step provides value, leads to a good result each time, produces the desired output every time, will not cause delay, is flexible and associated by a continuous flow.
Culture: Expecting people to discover waste in the work they're doing and are invested in is problematic; it entails clear vision and unwavering leadership dedication as the values and beliefs change so that an innovative “lean” culture can emerge.
Learn more about why leadership is critical to Lean Six Sigma Healthcare.
