The Healthcare sector is beginning to explore the use of lean and Six Sigma tools to improve, so most of our quality and process tools and techniques are available to the healthcare sector. We are aware of successful process improvements in many parts of the country that led to substantial improvements in customer service, reduced waste in service delivery, and substantial cost reductions. We are also aware of many performance measures in the healthcare sector that would prove useful in identifying areas for improvement.

What We Can Do For You

• Services for Healthcare
  
  
• Lean Healthcare Presentation
  
  
• A lean technique to improve quality in healthcare is Poka-Yoke (mistake proofing). We could stage a kaizen event (a continuous improvement that occurs over a short period of time) to learn the root cause of mistakes, and redesign processes to prevent the mistakes from happening in the future. Here is an example:
  

  The Blood-Loc System uses a small plastic combination lock on a plastic bag to restrict access to a unit of blood. The three digit code for the lock is found on the patient's wrist-band. This system insures that the nurse correctly identifies the patient and that the unit of blood and patient match.

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Success Stories

• Allen Hospital
  
• Mercy Medical Center Cedar Rapids
  
• Mercy Medical Center Des Moines
  
• Park Nicollet and Lean
  
• St. Luke's Medical Center
  
• ThedaCare and Lean
  

Papers

Several papers have been developed with the healthcare sector in mind. They are:

• Alignment of Baldrige-Six Sigma-Lean-Balanced Scorecard
  
• BarCode-Enabled Medication Administration
  
• Finding Operations Improvements
  
• Improvement in Healthcare is Possible
  
• Kaizen Events
  
• Lean Healthcare
  
• Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare
  
• Point-of-Care Medication Error Prevention
  
• Where Healthcare Should Invest
  

The Baldrige program provides an excellent way to get started, and we offer it to you with this link. Whether large or small, in business, education, health care, or nonprofit, in one location or with sites worldwide, your organization can benefit from conducting a self-assessment using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence and taking action for improvement. We suggest that you take the self-assessment and call us to discuss the best course for you to take to achieve the performance level you desire.

Contact us for more information. We would love to explore how what we do can improve healthcare operations with you.