Monday, April 28, 2014

Using The Lean Six Sigma Healthcare Method

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.

Of course when one would say the healthcare industry, he is automatically referring to the hospitals or the clinics. Now the hospitals would have medical processes wherein it will attempt to cure the patients. Now the task at hand would be to simply make sure that there are no flaws in the system of curing patients.

Now when it comes to managing a hospital, one has to make sure that there are almost no errors at all in the system. The reason behind that is simply if there would be an error in the system, it is possible that a life may be lost in the process. Now hospitals have to make sure that there would be no casualties because of inefficiency.

Now if one is already familiar with this method, then he will know that the DMAIC approach. Basically, this is known as the define, measure, analyze, improve, and control approach. When approaching errors or trying to improve quality, one has to take note of these five steps in order to successfully have quality control.

Now the first thing to do would be to simply look for a problem in the system and get to the main root of it before actually tackling it. If one sees that there is a problem in a certain process, then it could be either a human error or a machine error that is causing the problem. This is done in the definition of the problem stage wherein one is determining what is the main cause.

The next thing to do would be to measure how bad the problem is and how bad it will affect patient quality. Once that is done, then the next thing to do would be the analyze the problem and get to the deepest roots of it. What exactly the problem is, what the main cause is, and of course what can be done as a solution so that the problem will not occur ever again.

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 if one would want to minimize any errors in his clinic or hospital, then it is important for each department to learn this method. This way, they will be able to give the patients the best type of healthcare service that can be offered. This will also give them a feeling of safety so that they will not have to worry about any mishaps.




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