Any problem worth solving involves more than one department.Hospitals are complex entities and the parts interact in ways that are not obvious until explored by Lean Six Sigma methods.  We take a holistic systems approach to solving the key problems your hospital faces.

We are different than many Lean consultancies in several ways:

• We don’t charge for the assessment and project selection
  phase.  We believe you shouldn’t have to pay to have us understand
  your organizational goals.  We also believe that you know enough
  about your organization and its goals and issues;  we can just
  listen to you to identify the key problems.
• We don’t try to do a “Lean conversion” on your whole
  organization at once.  We do Just In Time training for the
  departments involved in your most critical Lean projects.  The
  “big bang” approach has upfront appeal, but in our experience, it has
  considerable downside; training in Lean, like any other training, is
  subject to a “half life” if the trainees don’t use it.  That gives
  the organization two choices; either start an overwhelming number of
  projects in local departments, or, have people wait to start system
  projects when their turn comes up in the priority queue.
  • The first option, lots of projects, diverts senior management
    attention from the critical few system projects that will have lasting
    impact.  We call this creating “Lean Fires”.  Fires either
    need to be fed or extinguished, and the staff reacts badly if their
    project is not given the resources it needs.
  • The second option, waiting until a department project rises
    in the queue, is a problem because Lean and Lean training will have
    been introduced months ago.  The staff will see Lean as a “flavor
    of the month” in the interim.  When they finally get to work on a
    project, they will require re-training due to the half life phenomenon
    and staff turnover.
  • We see training the whole organization at once as a subtle
    Lean waste.  You will have created an “inventory”.

• We choose the right tools for the job.  Some consultancies
  view the hospital through a Lean lens.  Lean has marvelous tools,
  but they are not the only process improvement tools that you should
  use. For instance we use:
  • Lean Tools to explore flow and operational waste.
  • Safety and Reliability Engineering to redesign
    safety-critical processes such as medication administration.  Lean
    tools applied without explicit thoughts for process safety can, for
    instance, regard medication double checks as inspection waste.  We
    pride ourselves on being able to “Lean Safely”
  • Six Sigma Tools for understanding exactly what the patient or
    other customer wants, and for building processes that produce
    perfection.  Six Sigma is a data driven process, and we have the
    statistical and analytical tools to do the hard work that it requires.

• You know who will be doing the work.  We don’t have a
  separate sales force; the people who make a proposal are the people you
  will be working with.  Demand for Lean Healthcare consultants has
  outstripped the supply of qualified people.  When you are working
  with other consulting firms, make sure to meet the consulting leader
  and facilitators who will actually be working at your site.
• We speak in English.  Japanese terms like “Kaizen” or
  “Gemba” have a certain cachet, but can create a divide between those
  who have been through an improvement project and those who have
  not.  We use simple terms like “Quick Improvement Project” or
  “Observing the work where it is done”.

Our approach is to listen and to apply efforts where it will do the most good.  We:
• Listen to what you have to say about the organization and your
  goals, problems, and issues.
• Help you focus on the critical few “burning platform” problems
  or opportunities in the organization
• Identify the whole system that produces results.  We often
  find that a problem that surfaces in surgery as a schedule disruption,
  for instance, can result from pre-surgical planning or the surgical
  scheduling system, or the physician’s orders for surgery, or from a
  materials management supplies problem.
• “Follow the money”.  We take the time to find not just the
  Lean wastes, but the key financial drivers of the process.
• Identify the Critical to Quality measures for your customers,
  not only the patient, but referring physician groups.
• Train your staff “Just In Time” so that they can participate
  fully in a Lean exercise.
• Use the best tools to understand and redesign your system and
  processes.
• Train your staff on how to use the new process.  We tell
  them just enough about Lean and Six Sigma to understand the steps to
  the new process, but the focus is on the process itself.
• Create metrics and job aids so that you can sustain the
  improvement.

Our Service Mark is pending.   We have been musing on how
Toyota went astray with their recent unintended acceleration
issues.  We suspect that they stayed true to their Lean
Manufacturing roots, but that they missed some of the key guidance from
Safety and Reliability Engineering (does all software and hardware fail
in a fail-safe manner) and from Six Sigma (floor mats need to look
good, but they need to stay put, or, accelerator pedal components need
to have a lifetime of 300,000 miles or more so that none will ever fail
in the first 200,000 miles)

Please contact us for more information or to discuss whether Lean Sigma Healthcare has the
potential to satisfy your requirements.