Innovation of the Week: Innovation at Merck
Posted by: meikah | 22 July 2011 | 2:44 am
This week’s edition of innovation update features the renewed focus on innovation at Merck.
A global healtchare leader, Merck wanted to make sure that they are among the successful stories in business. To achieve that goal, Merck knows that innovation is the only way to go.
Here’s what Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier has in mind and what he plans to do to achieve this.
“We must make certain Merck is among the success stories,’’ Frazier said.
Filed under: Healthcare, Innovation, Innovation Update, Merck, Pharmaceuticals
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Saving with TEa and Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 19 July 2011 | 3:25 am
At work, I have been trying to measure income against savings for the past months now. I’m having a hard time doing the budget actually, especially when requests for technology upgrade come up all the time.
The challenge is how to invest wisely in the business yet realize some savings. The article goes:
I got an idea from an article on Westgard QC. The article talks about the impact of redesigning quality control based on Six Sigma concept. This was applied to several hospitals in the Netherlands. In hospital laboratories, the challenge is how to perform better with less budget.
The laboratory at one of the Utrecht locations only has a limited functionality for STAT requests. At the other Utrecht location all “basic” tests are performed. The (main) location in Nieuwegein offers a wide range of tests, including special techniques. In 2009 the department of clinical chemistry received 472618 requests representing over 3.000.000 test orders.
My responsibilities at Sint Antonius include the system of IQC, training the staff in Six Sigma, system evaluations and method validations and developing an advanced process control system in accordance with the ISO 15189. The laboratory organisation is accredited since 1998.
Hospital laboratories are urged to perform better with less budget. In general there is always a strong need to keep the expenses as low as possible while maintaining the level of quality of the measurement procedures. We have been able to reduce the costs of failure and at the same time maintain the level of quality by designing our IQC-procedures using TEa and Six Sigma.
Filed under: Healthcare, Quality, Six Sigma
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Six Sigma Companies News: Southcoast Health System Saves $20M Without Layoffs
Posted by: meikah | 28 October 2010 | 12:31 am
Here’s another edition of Six Sigma Companies News.
Southcoast Health System–a three-hospital system based in New Bedford, Mass.–has saved $20 million since it began implementing Lean Six Sigma in January 2009, the New England Business Bulletin reports. The savings are “well over” the amount invested, Patrick Gannon, vice president and chief quality officer for Southcoast Hospitals Group, told the Bulletin.
Filed under: Healthcare, Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma, Six Sigma News, Six Sigma Organizations
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Mark Graban of Lean Blog Interviews Justin Holland of GE Healthcare
Posted by: meikah | 8 September 2010 | 9:37 pm
Topics covered during this interview are:
- how GE integrated lean with six sigma
- how healthcare organizations are striving to have a “lean culture”
- some of the successes and challenges facing hospitals and other healthcare organizations
Filed under: GE Healthcare, Healthcare, Lean, Six Sigma
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Six Sigma in Europe
Posted by: meikah | 20 August 2010 | 12:22 am
According to an article on the Business Review Europe Online, most successful adopters of Six Sigma are found in Europe.
Among the successful companies are Hertel and GE Healthcare.
According to Ben Doornbusch, Global Business Improvement Manager of Hertel, “The biggest improvement was in the steering of people at our sites. We discovered that there had previously been a lot of loss, with our workforce not being as productive as it could be.”
Mahen Hoolash, Six Sigma Quality Leader, GE Healthcare, says, “Six Sigma taught us that there is a noticeable difference between 99 percent good quality and 99.99966.”
Filed under: GE, Healthcare, Hertel, Six Sigma
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Six Sigma Improves Emergency Department Processes
Posted by: meikah | 28 April 2010 | 8:49 pm
Most hospital emergency departments (ED) have one thing in common: too many patients, too little space. Thus, if you are a conscientious management,you would find ways to improve it, and fast.
An article on Health Leaders Media, shares how Jersey City Medical Center improves its ED.
Christy Wade, the nurse manager of the emergency department, enjoined her colleagues, all Six Sigma certified, to work on the problem. That is to search for ED bottlenecks and ways to remove them.
The team instituted changes, including a new approach to observation patients, that have reduced wait time to an average of 30 minutes, and decreased hours on divert to zero. Last month less than 1.5% of patients left without being seen.
Filed under: Healthcare, Processes, Six Sigma
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Six Sigma Case Study: Improving Engineering System Reliability in Healthcare
Posted by: meikah | 15 February 2010 | 9:19 pm
Express Healthcare features a case of Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital, Mumbai, a 130 bed multi speciality tertiary and quaternary care hospital.
Through the use of Six Sigma, the hospital is able to improve engineering system reliability. You can say that this is another feather in their cap as the hospital already received the prestigious National Accreditation for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH).
The other specialties of Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital, Mumbai is: energy efficient structure design to achieve day light harvesting to reduce HVAC load, rain water harvesting system and integrated building management system (IBMS).
The project goals are:
- utility consumption
- engineering system reliability
- flushing water supply
Read how the hospital used Six Sigma to achieve all that.
Filed under: Healthcare, Six Sigma
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Lean at the Operating Room
Posted by: meikah | 27 January 2010 | 9:09 pm
Lean has been associated with manufacturing and its use in the factory floor. But people discover that Lean can also be used in the service industry.
An article on iSixSigma Healthcare shows us how Lean can be used in the operating room, for example. Here’s an excerpt of the article.
Recently one healthcare organization had a goal to decrease its turnover time in the operating room. The use of Lean tools eliminated waste, idle time and efforts that added no value from the patients’ or physicians’ perspective. Additionally, visual indicators were put in place to help reduce errors and rework. The team for this project was able to immediately reduce the turnover time by 50 percent – with minimal investment and without any changes to the hospital or departmental IT systems.
Lean Tools Have Healthcare Applications
In a Lean organization, processes and value streams associated with services, products and patient care are continually evaluated for waste. Such waste is then attacked with a vengeance using a number of industry-proven tools, such as:
- Pull systems and “flow” to improve throughput in areas such as labs and other places with paperwork-intensive processes.
- SMED techniques applied to changeover time improvements in operating rooms. (SMED comes from the manufacturing industry and stands for “single minute exchange of die.”)
- Poka-Yoke, aimed at reducing the opportunity for errors and omissions.
- 5-S, used to rearrange/reorganize nursing stations and other healthcare workplaces for greater efficiency.
Filed under: Healthcare, Lean, Six Sigma
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St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Improves Back-office Functions Through Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 18 January 2010 | 8:53 pm
Armed with these principles, the organization is now improving back-office functions using Six Sigma. In an article on Crain’s Detroit Business-Focus, this is how they do it:
- conducted a thorough analysis of work flows in the lab, radiology and central supply
- significant improvement: cut radiology department turnaround time for reports and tests by 50 percent
- used lean principles in designing its new surgical pavilion
Filed under: Healthcare, Services, Six Sigma
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Quality Award for Nyack Hospital Emergency Department
Posted by: meikah | 16 December 2009 | 8:27 pm
In a press release over at dBusinessNews, Nyack Hospital Emergency Department won the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System‘s Annual Quality Symposium Award for the second year in a row.
According to the press release:
The Emergency Department received last year’s award for their “Code H” project. Nyack Hospital’s submission, “Change in Triage Process Using Lean Methodology,” described the use of LEAN tools and the positive impact that the implementation of a 30 Minute Service Standard had in significantly reducing ED waiting time, virtually eliminating the percentage of patients left without being seen, and improving patient satisfaction in the Hospital’s Emergency Department. Nyack Hospital’s Emergency Department is staffed by Emergency Medical Associates (www.ema-ed.com), one of the country’s premier emergency physician groups.
The Quality Symposium Award recognizes an organization’s commitment to quality innovation in patient care.
