LEAN HEALTHCARE? IT WORKS!
The Lean transformation principles that were developed for use in a manufacturing environment
can be applied to healthcare settings, with the result of
reducing costs without reducing services provided to patients!
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Healthcare organizations face increasing pressures between the rising costs of providing services to patients and the reimbursement rates dictated by insurance companies, HMOs and government payers.
Healthcare Lean™
LTG's Healthcare Lean™ applies concepts and techniques of the Toyota Production System to help hospitals, clinics, physician practices and other healthcare providers increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve patient service. |
| LTG healthcare clients who have implemented Lean thinking and techniques have seen the following improvements: |
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Same day office visits
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No-wait emergency room (see LTG/MHA Keystone Collaborative) |
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Productivity gains of 62% |
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20% increase in number of surgical procedures by reducing operating room changeover |
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CONTACT US
Let's discuss how LTG can help you become a Lean enterprise. Click and send an e-mail today!
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Healthcare does not need more queuing algorithms. Healthcare needs Lean thinking to see processes from a value stream perspective, to understand the role of the patient and the customer in that value stream, and to make use of improvement plans to build in quality, eliminating waste in the process.
Healthcare Lean™ makes use of Value Stream Mapping, a tool that shows how work is done and how to improve that work.
~ The value added process for healthcare operations is the encounter of the patient and the caregiver. The intent of Healthcare Lean™ is to improve, not interfere with, that process.
~ The goal of Healthcare Lean™ is to improve quality by reducing cost of non-value added steps, that is, work not reimbursed by the payer.
~ Value stream mapping does this by making clear that the output of the process is delivered to a customer other than the patient.
The following table shows a value stream example in which the customer is not the patient.
| Process |
Output of process |
Customer
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Hospital billing from receipt of voucher to transmitting claim and posting-payment |
Transmitted claim or posted payment in 2 hours |
Payer and Accounting Dept. |
Endoscopy procedure from patient arrival to discharge |
Increase throughput of preparation and procedure steps by eliminating recovery bottleneck |
Physician |
Physician medicine from patient arrival to discharge |
Complete and accurate physical or occupational therapy report in one day |
Physician |
Procedure scheduling from physician inquiry to scheduled appointment |
Scheduled, authorized appointment for a procedure (e.g., chest roentgenogram, colonoscopy, cardiac ultrasound) in 3 days |
Resource that does the procedure (e.g., radiology, endoscopy, cardiovascular departments) |
The value stream perspective shows process flow from a systems view, and reveals how to measure performance of that system. Value stream mapping is effective and useful because it makes visible the link between material flow (e.g., scheduled procedure or physician office visit, endoscopy or physical medicine report, or claim for a physician encounter) and information flow (e.g., telephone requests, appointment scheduling software, on-line transmissions from payers).
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Healthcare Success Stories
| Problem |
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Mayo Clinic's Emergency Department was experiencing higher census but had no effective way to increase the footprint of their ED. They were looking for a way to address their patients' needs without the cost of building more beds.
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| How We Helped |
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LTG's Lean Consultants helped Mayo Clinic use process improvement to increase efficiency. We worked with Mayo health care providers and management to create internal lean expertise. Cross functional teams including physicians:
- designed better processes,
- implemented a pull system, and
- incorporated unique teaming concepts within the work.
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| Result |
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The ED has continued to see increased census but because of improved operations and patient throughput, no increase in the footprint was necessary. |
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They have been continuously improving their operations without our support for over two years and have reduced LOS by 30%, reduced LWOBS by 60% and increased the satisfaction of 73% of their repeat patients.
And they are continuing to improve!
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Read about Mayo Clinic's lean transformation, supported by LTG's Lean Consultants, in another area Best in Healthcare Getting Better with Lean - - Mayo Clinic Division of Cardiovascular Diseases improving patient-flow processes..
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LEAN HEALTHCARE