Sunday, April 27, 2014

The Method Of Lean Six Sigma Healthcare

By Essie Osborn


If one is an owner of a company or probably even a manager, then he has most likely heard of the famous lean six sigma method of managing a business. Now although this is mostly used in manufacturing companies, these concepts can actually be very good in the health care industry. There are certain ways on how to use the lean six sigma healthcare method in hospitals or clinics.

Now in the health care industry, one would be handling medical institutions like hospitals. Now the thing about hospitals is that instead of creating products, they provide medical services to patients who need it. Now while providing the services, there may be some errors that may occur in the process.

Now the thing about managing a hospital or any health institution is that one error can be tantamount to a death. So if one of the staff would create an error during for example a surgery, then this could cost the life of a human being. It is for this reason that all errors have to be eliminated so that the safety of the patient will not be compromised at all.

Now the whole core of this method would be none other than the process of DMAIC. If one is not familiar with this method, basically it is the defining, measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling of errors of the process. By following these five steps, it is possible for the management to be able to identify the problems of the hospital.

Now the very first step of this process would be to know about the problem and the root cause before coming up with a solution. If there is an inefficiency in a certain process, one should not only look at the inefficiency but also the cause of it. Now this is known as defining what the problem is and what are the main causes of this problem that is being presented.

Now the second step in the process of DMAIC would be to of course measure the problem and how bad it is. After measuring the intensity of this problem, the next thing to do would be to understand it and analyze it. It is also here in this step that one would try to determine a possible solution that could be done in order for the issue to be fixed.

Getting the issue fixed is not enough as there actually is a possibility that the problem may come back. So after the implementation of a solution, one has to come up with a way to maintain control of the process so that the problem does not happen again. He has to make sure to come up with a way on how to monitor this implementation.

Now in the healthcare industry, this is indeed a very useful technique to use. So if a hospital would want to take care of their patients to the full extent, then they would have to put some effort into spotting some of defects in some processes. As long as one is able to spot the defects in medical processes, he can serve the patients much better.




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