Lean Healthcare We Got The Money-Now What

I want to start things off by saying that I come to the table not only bringing a problem, but also the solution. Most of us are skeptics and are concerned that the money recently handed out will not be used to improve the patient care in our healthcare system. Even with the best intentions, the money may get diverted to areas, which may have little impact on the real systemic healthcare problems. As you read this article, you will discover there is a way to ensure that the changes and investments of the dollars have the desired outcome on healthcare. It only requires passion and a solid strategic plan for implementation.

Over the last few weeks, there has been a great deal of press and conversation about Canadian Healthcare. The politicians are dividing up a pot of newly found money for healthcare and the public is wondering why the waiting lists for many of the critical care areas are so long. It appears the healthcare system is broken down.

Growing up in Canada, the one differentiator between Canada and the rest of the world was our fantastic healthcare, which served all Canadians. We were the envy of all countries. Today, the envy has turned to smirks and sometimes laughter created by the dissatisfaction and frustration of the present healthcare service that is received.

Power of Lean Healthcare

As health care costs increase at a faster rate than other products or services, health care providers, in particular hospitals, are under continuous pressure to dramatically improve service, reduce costs, improve patient safety, reduce waiting times, and reduce errors and associated litigation.

However, hospitals are not making the necessary improvements in cost, quality, and safety. A report by the U.S. HHS Office of the Inspector General finds that 20% of consecutive inpatient stay sequences were associated with poor quality care, unnecessary fragmentation of care, or both. The current organization and management of hospitals is an imperfect system that cannot effectively address these issues. Major projects to restructure hospitals, dramatically reduce cost, and improve customer care have had little impact on quality or cost.

In simplistic terms, current healthcare systems are not designed to make the process or ‘value stream’ of care flow smoothly. Healthcare services are often ‘batch and queue’, with patients spending most of their time waiting until the Healthcare Professional is ready i.e. push versus pull. As the population matures, patient cycle times in the hospitals, post-care facilities, and laboratories become key measurements that need to improve.

Bringing Lean Healthcare to Life

Starting Blocks

Without a doubt, Lean is set to make a big impact on the Healthcare sector over the next few years and many Healthcare organisations in both the public and private sector are already exploring how they could apply it to their patient pathways and administrative processes.

Whilst many of the tools of Lean are familiar to the people in the Healthcare sector, particularly aspects of Process Analysis, the real difference that Lean will bring is a change in the way that improvements activities are implemented rather than the use of the tools themselves.

Many people in the Healthcare sector are looking to people with Lean skills gained in manufacturing to help guide them through the maze of implementing Lean, including helping the organisation to prepare for Lean as well as undertake the specific improvement activities, including Value Stream Events, Rapid Improvement Events etc. Running alongside this is the need to develop the internal capacity of organisations to lead improvements themselves, which is achieved by developing internal Lean facilitators (or Change Agents).

However, as we already know, not every problem in Healthcare can be related to a problem encountered in Manufacturing and there are some significant differences in approach required to make for a successful improvement programme for people more familiar with leading Lean improvements in Manufacturing.