4: Reducing Defects with Six Sigma
Using simple charts, I’ve helped teams save millions of dollars and often in just a few days. The concept is over 100 years old. It’s referenced often in every management…
2: Lean for Accelerated Patient Flow
Medical educators must begin teaching tomorrow’s doctors to become much better at creating, improving, and managing processes and systems. —CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN The agonizingly slow flow of patients through a…
11: Statistical Tools for Lean Six Sigma
Some tools of Lean Six Sigma aren’t graphical; they’re simply analytical. Sometimes you want to be able to compare two processes or products and learn something about their quality using…
3: Simple Steps to a Better Hospital
The Institute of Medicine’s To Err Is Human (National Academy Press, 2000) called for a 50 percent reduction in medication errors, but in 2009, Dr. David Bates said, “With respect…
10: Laser-Focused Process Innovation
So far we’ve looked at ways to solve problems with delay, defects, and deviation using the methods and tools of Lean Six Sigma. After Lean Six Sigma teams have sunk…
8: Is There an Improvement Project in My Data?
Lean Six Sigma professionals often talk about picking the “low-hanging fruit,” but what if the low-hanging fruit is invisible. I’ve noticed that one of the biggest challenges improvement professionals face…
12: Change Management
Managing performance improvements in a hospital full of patients can seem daunting, but it’s a skill that can be learned. You will make mistakes, but the secret is to learn…
5: Simple Steps to a Cheaper (More Profitable) Hospital
It should come as no surprise that a faster, better hospital will be cheaper to operate and more profitable. When you’re not dealing with all the delays in the emergency…
6: Six Sigma for Hospitals
Every hospital has two “factories”: 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,…
13: Theory of Constraints
When I first tried to read Eliyahu Goldratt’s book, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (North River Press, 1984), I couldn’t get through it. It was about improving throughput…
