Six Sigma relies heavily on statistical analysis of data and strong problem-solving techniques to eliminate defects. For more than a decade, manufacturing have used it to eliminate errors. Only recently have health care organizations begun applying Six Sigma methods into their operations, and Froedtert & Medical College are pioneers in this implementation.
The move to deploy Six Sigma took place after a study released by the National Academy of Science?s Institute of Medicine (IOM). The study found that medical errors are responsible for the deaths of 44,000 to 98,000 hospital patients every year. And even if the numbers were lower it would still make medical errors the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States, surpassing causes such as motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.
Beth Lanham, RN, BSN, Quality Management Six Sigma Coordinator of the Froedtert Six Sigma effort, said in her article for the March 2003 issue of the journal Nursing Economics that unintended human error is at the root of many medical errors. The IOM, on the other hand, concluded that ?the problem is not bad people in health care ? it is that good people are working in bad systems. No one questions the fact that health care today is high-risk, highly complex and labor intensive. It has grown far too complex for the model that worked decades ago. The quality of our current care delivery system is, to a large extent, dependent on complex internal systems working smoothly and efficiently together. Froedtert Hospital believes that implementation of Six Sigma methodology is the catalyst needed to successfully combine quality, cost and patient safety.?
True enough, when Froedtert & Medical College deployed its three initial Six Sigma projects, it was able to significantly improve patient care and reduce errors.
1. IV drug infusions improve the accuracy of drip calculations. Error rates and clinical discrepancies improved significantly.
2. Patient Controlled Pumps for Administering Pain Medications. The crucial errors on concentrations for medication and pump programming greatly improved, resulting in fewer errors, and if errors did occur, they were less severe and were discovered more quickly.
3. Laboratory turn-around time discovered a variety of obstacles to improvement, such as software and interface issues and the pneumatic tube system, among others.
Following Froedtert Hospital, other hospitals also turned to Six Sigma to reduce costs. According to the IOM report, “reducing medical errors can also result in significant financial savings, reporting that total national costs of preventable medical errors resulting in injury account for between $17 billion and $29 billion per year. The study noted that preventable adverse drug reactions can increase average hospitalization costs by $4,700 per admission.”
The successful Six Sigma initiative by Froedtert & Medical College and the American Society for Quality has been mentioned on several occasions by John Torinus, a West Bend CEO who writes a regular column in the Sunday Business Section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In a recent column he hailed those efforts again:
?Health experts say defects in the medical system cause as much as 30% of all costs. In the $1.3 trillion health care industry, that means $390 million in waste every year.”
In the article, it was shown that there are still a lot of improvements that the medical industry is facing, even in terms of employing the Six Sigma strategy. The effort of Froedtert & Medical College is a good start though.
Six Sigma Program Takes Aim at Medical Errors
