AAEMI has been helping health care providers improve the quality of care while also reducing costs since 2006. We work in partnership with our clients to implement organization-wide breakthrough improvement initiatives such as Lean Six Sigma. These breakthroughs allow health care organizations to meet the rising expectations of patients, physicians, communities, and third-party payment.
Lean manufacturing concept was originated from Toyota Production System (TPS). This was designed for continuous process improvement in automobile industry. Lean is currently utilised my industries like mining, oil and Gas, banks and food production facilities
Concept of Lean Manufacturing is equally applicable in Health care as it is in manufacturing industry. In hospitals, different processes are being carried out like, operations, medical tests, Patient admissions, emergency department care. In health care, internal customers are Doctors, Nurses, Administration and external customers are patients. But customer concept of quality in health care is totally different from product’s buyer concept.
In health care, there are different types of wastes associated. Commonly found wastes are:
Waiting
Often one can see patient waiting in the line to see a doctor in the emergency, check-ups and medicine. This is very common in the major hospitals. Lean manufacturing help doctor to utilise their time better. By ensuring that nurse sees the patients first and by utilise helpers.
Inventory is major contributing factor in hospital related costs. Sometimes, more items are procured then required, so it is considered as dead inventory. But lean manufacturing focus on fewer inventories but with frequent shipments. Transportation waste is another key factor that lean manufacturing addresses. In Health care, if facilities are not properly designed then patients, test results, doctors, nurses and other stakeholders will have to walk and more time will be wasted.
Defects in health care are intolerable, because they can cause ir-reversible damage to human health. Common defects or errors can be wrong operations, wrong tests, and wrong test reports. In lean manufacturing, concept of Mistake Proofing (Poke Yoke) is used to avoid such defects.