1.
When it comes to staff training on Lean, the hospital starts training them immediately about Lean as soon as the employee is hired (Perez).Education on Lean is made available to all levels of staff from the bottom up, at Miami Children’s Hospital with a manual that states how each task is to be carried out. Personal engagement is done on everybody on the team to have an appreciation and understanding on what Lean is. This kind of methodology was applied to routine applications. This approach made staff feel like they were also part of the decision making process (Perez). This led to growth of the program which has reached a point where customers or families are asked about their expectations on efficiency.
2.
One of the major takeaways of the Lean process improvement initiative is making operational improvements stick and enabling hospitals save money that can be invested in developmental projects. Lean also facilitates scalability since complex processes become manageable. Also, there is clear information that enables the hospital increase efficiency through reviewing feedback (Perez). Through educating employees, the initiative helps improve performance and boosts the hospital’s bottom line. Through Lean, a hospital or organization can reduce waste and increase productivity by making the working environment very orderly through cards and other visual cues. The initiative helps reduce unplanned extubation by helping the management understand their processes better.
3.
Other hospitals can gain from the Lean initiative crash cart strategy for nurses to evaluate what is needed and what is in excess. This makes the process lean and efficient during emergencies because it is easy to see what you need, where it is and when you need it. This reduces time spent on checking crash carts from 3 hours to 10 minutes and saving $30,000 annually.
Also, hospital goods can be produced based on a tag time while allowing a small working process inventory through queuing methods spaghetti flow diagrams. This optimizes flow of work. In surgery, hospitals can minimize the number of tools in trays to make sure that patients get into the room in time for surgery (Nicklaus Children’s Hospital). A digital management tool and bed-boards can be used to reduce discharge time of patients from 8 to 5 or 3 hours (Nicklaus Children’s Hospital).
Other hospitals can borrow the Lean laboratory approach which helped Miami Children’s Hospital blood unit cut wastage by 80% in four years.
Other hospitals can use Lean to cut their operational costs, improve efficiency and customer satisfaction and helpboth doctors and management understand how the different processes at the hospitals relate with each other. Also, other hospitals could gain by having a standardized supply chain and distribution method that reduces expired supplies, overstocks while improving inventory.Here hospitals can adopt the automatic replenishment signaling where the ERP system is notified of a shortage through pushing a button. Value stream maps can also be used to measure operational excellence.
4.
Through Lean Six Sigma, organizations can be able to increase revenues by streamlining their processes. This is because Lean Six Sigma ensures the fast completion of tasks in the most efficient manner without compromising on quality of outcome. The organizations are able to achieve a lot with the resources that are available. This is accomplished by cutting down waste and eliminating issues in processes which cost hospitals money.
BCPE is an integrated management framework tool that can be used by hospital management and leaders to assess organizational performance. Regardless of a hospital’s size, BCPE provides leaders and hospital management with a range of questions that provide a path in operating the hospital or organization efficiently. BCPE also offers critical perspectives on how processes in the organization are integrated. This helps leaders and hospital managements understand how processes relate while keeping track on how the organization’s beliefs and values are being upheld. Winners of the Baldrige award have reported significant percentages in median revenue growth (above 90%). BCPE is therefore an internal assessment tool that is relevant for performance excellence in the organization.
Works cited
Perez, D. “Miami Children’s Hospital: The Lean Process.” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 27 January 2013. Web. 23 March 2016.
Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. “Nicklaus Children's Hospital LEAN business improvement model.” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 10 November 2009. Web. 23 March 2016.
