Thursday, April 24, 2014

Using The Lean Six Sigma Healthcare Method

By Essie Osborn


Manufacturers have been using the lean six sigma method for many years already because it has been so helpful in spotting and correcting the areas of manufacturing that were flawed. Now even if it is mainly used in manufacturing, the institutions in the healthcare industry have proven that it is equally as useful in this field. Now if one would want to know how it can work, here is how to use the lean six sigma healthcare method.

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 one of the things that hospitals would have to look out for would be the errors in the medical processes that will be done. The thing about medical processes is that it can mean the loss of the life of a patient. So it is very important for a hospital to eliminate all of the errors in the medical processes so that no lives will be taken.

Now the whole core of this method would be none other than the process of DMAIC. If one is not familiar with this method, basically it is the defining, measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling of errors of the process. By following these five steps, it is possible for the management to be able to identify the problems of the hospital.

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.

Now after doing that, the next thing to do is to measure just how bad the problem would be. After measuring the intensity of the problem, the very next thing to do would be to dig deeper and do a full analysis on it. By looking at the root cause of the problem, one can already think up of a solution and try to implement it from there.

After the implementation process, he has to create a way to be able to make sure that the solution is consistently implemented. This means that one would have to do a maintenance check from time to time. Now the controlling would involve the monitoring of the entire operation so that the problem will not occur again.

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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