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Sunday, April 20, 2014

The Lean Six Sigma Healthcare Method

By Essie Osborn


If one is an owner of a company or probably even a manager, then he has most likely heard of the famous lean six sigma method of managing a business. Now although this is mostly used in manufacturing companies, these concepts can actually be very good in the health care industry. There are certain ways on how to use the lean six sigma healthcare method in hospitals or clinics.

Now this method can be used when it comes to handling clinics or hospitals. This means that the one who manages the hospital or clinic can actually eliminate defects in the processes that the institution would handle. This means that everyone has to be trained in this in order to avoid any errors.

Now the thing about managing a hospital or any health institution is that one error can be tantamount to a death. So if one of the staff would create an error during for example a surgery, then this could cost the life of a human being. It is for this reason that all errors have to be eliminated so that the safety of the patient will not be compromised at all.

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.

Getting the issue fixed is not enough as there actually is a possibility that the problem may come back. So after the implementation of a solution, one has to come up with a way to maintain control of the process so that the problem does not happen again. He has to make sure to come up with a way on how to monitor this implementation.

So as one can see, this method can work really well if one is in the healthcare industry. Now the goal of any institution is to make sure that each patient would be well taken care of no matter what so that they will be able to heal themselves of any sickness. By making use of this method, it is possible to give them the best treatment.




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