Innovation through Lean Principles

Lean helps a lot in recognizing where organizations have been wasting the value of the employees and to be more efficient in the whole process.

“Before we had the Lean operation we’ve had 25+ cardiologists in the center and in the practice this big that sees 40,000+ patients it is difficult to have a system in place where they get their testing on time, they’re not lost in the shuffle, they’re also seen by the physician on time as well,” says Tristan Nuri, General Cardiologist in PACE Cardiology Clinic.

Charanjit Singh (CJ) Bawa, Lean Coach in Canada Health Net said that they had applied Lean in health care in a cardio clinic and in an Imaging Center. In the cardio clinic they had been able to help the team by mapping the process to find out the redundant work. “For example the same patient’s file was touched at least 5-6 times by 3 or 4 different people so they were able to analyze the process, they were able to map the process. The same process now is done in one touch and also they were able to reduce their lead time by around 20%,” pointed out Charanjit Singh Bawa.

“So I think in system like Lean we have been able to cut back on a time for the testing, for the wait periods between the testings and as far as I’m concerned I get to see the patients once all the investigations are done on time,” adds Tristan Nuri, saying that it had cut back his time as well. He has a lot of feedback from the patients that say that because of this process they are not waiting around for a long period of time but they get their tests done on time and they get to see him on time so it’d worked pretty well.

“Those are huge type of improvements that can only happen when the senior management of organization as well as the staff embraced the concept of doing continuous day-to-day improvements,” explains Julia Novik, Innovation Coach and Founder of Canada Health Net. “And in their operation and overtime those little small changes and improvements that they do in their daily activities lead to big improvements and overall better value to their patients.”

Dr. Yaariv Khaykin, Director and Physician Leader in PACE Cardiology Clinic said that they had also incorporated KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) in evaluating their progress and had found that the patient time in clinic waiting for the physician had plummeted dramatically from over 2 hours to under an hour over the last three to four months.

“Lean has helped us a lot in recognizing where we’ve been wasting the value of the employees and help us be more efficient in the whole process,” says Santiago Luna, Lead Sonographer in PACE Cardiology Clinic.

“At the end of the day physicians were a lot happier. They no longer had to wait for the patients to arrive. They are no longer behind by an hour or two at the end of the clinic. They are right on time,” adds Dr. Yaariv Khaykin. “When I finish a clinic now all of my work is done, the tests are all reported, the letters are all sent to the referring physicians and effectively I walk out of the clinic the same time as my last patient is walking out of the clinic.”

Edith Dell, Operations Manager in MS CGC said that they all had inefficiencies in their processes and looking at those inefficiencies was a good way to improving services and increasing satisfaction of the customer.