Process Improvements in Healthcare: Using Lean Methodology

Apr 4, 2018

As a Project Coordinator at Canada Health Net, I together with my team focus on bringing lean methodology into healthcare organizations and working together with the staff on process improvements to make the work processes leaner. Canada Health Net is a group of passionate lean experts and healthcare innovators dedicated to improving healthcare in Ontario. We are the only lean solution training and consulting provider focused exclusively on helping healthcare businesses.

What is Lean in healthcare? It is the application of lean manufacturing principles to healthcare delivery. The goal of any lean operation is twofold: reducing amount of time spent on unnecessary activities and reducing defects in the production of goods or provision of services.

Improving Healthcare Using Lean Processes

longwoods.com

We at Canada Health Net as Lean coaches want to grasp your attention to the following: What are the benefits of Lean? Essentially, adopting a lean process gets to the heart of the matter by improving flow of each patient’s experience and operating an efficient organization overall. Some of the benefits of establishing a lean healthcare course of action are:

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Reduced waiting times for patients

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Reduced risk in services and procedures – safety

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Freeing up capacity that can be invested back into patient care

Example:

Decrease in bed shortages
Less inventory consumption and maximum use of space
Improving customer/patient experience and outcomes
Better workplace cleanliness and safety
Streamlined approach to workplace organization and administration
Greater efficiency with patient records and appointments.
Reduced stress on front line care-givers – process in control (stable and predictable) and capability

The article by G. Ross Baker focuses on just that. Lean has been a part of healthcare organizations for many years to improve care processes, increase patient satisfaction, maintain better better work environments.

“Lean principles and methods focus on engaging staff, providing them with the tools to diagnose and improve care and the patient/client experience, with a focus on reducing waste and creating better value.”

Baker brings our attention to the fact that the largest system now in Canada is underway in Saskatchewan.

“Saskatchewan began system-wide Lean training and implementation that includes basic training in Lean concepts and tools for all 40,000 staff in the province, and an in-depth Lean Leader Training for nearly 900 leaders and managers, who are required to learn and apply Lean methods in healthcare environments.”

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Lean Methodology in healthcare quality improvement

transitionconsultants.com

A fantastic read on Lean Methodology and how it helps with process improvement. Here is a sneak peak at what Lean consists of. Let us quickly go through each one:

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Value

A significant component of Lean is the concept of value: the theoretical concept of value, the measurement of value, and the tangible processes behind delivering value

Waste

Lean focuses on the maximization of process velocity through the reduction of waste. It provides tools for analyzing process flow and delay times at each activity in a process

Process

A crucial process in Lean is the identification of waste through root cause analysis

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Source

Sources of waste vary greatly by industry. The majority of waste encountered by health care organizations occurs in flow and throughput

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Cost Recovery

The ultimate goal of most Lean implementations is to attain a tangible benefit, often in the form of a cost recovery

The article, written by Christopher Majdi, explains that Lean is type of quality improvement which has being embedded in many industries, healthcare is one of them. “Its principles and practices also have been applied to health care organizations with success.”

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Let’s Look At How A Hospital That Has Implemented Process Improvement Could Function

theleaninhealthcare.com

We all love when things are organized, waiting time is not long, registration is very quick and the doctor does not rush through your appointment. In reality, things do not always happen that way. This article is a perfect example of that. It asked you to imagine that from the time you come into the office and leave, the whole process takes about 20 minutes and not 2 or more hours. Let us see: You come in, paperwork takes 2 minutes; nurse greets you and escorts you to the room; nurse asks you more questions and then the doctor comes in; speaks with you some more and then gives you the prescription; when you come into the pharmacy your medication is ready for pick-up. The idea is that the results remain consistent and “when it does not the hospital staff initiates an aggressive problem solving process that detects the problem that caused the process to go awry and they implement a counter measure to ensure that problem will not happen again.”

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Upcoming Trainings ⇣

Nov 22-23

Lean in Healthcare

Price: $899
Location: Mississauga

Dec 4-5

Lean in Healthcare

Price: $899
Location: Toronto

On September 20, 2018 Canada Health Net participated at the XI Wiki Meeting between Canada and Brazil. One of the main topics of this conference was to discuss the benefits of investments in Digital Health.

The benefits of investments in Digital Health – Mr. Bobby Gheorghiu, Manager, Trending and Performance, Performance Analytics, Canada Health Infoway. Overview in Early Clinical Development in Innovative Medicines Dr. Bertrand J. Jean-Claude, Director at the Research Institute of the MUHC – McGill University Health Centre.

You can watch the speech below: