Lean Enterprise Academy > Healthcare > Making Processes Visible and Therefore Manageable
Whilst there are many similarities, there are (no matter what anyone tells you) some fundamental differences between applying lean thinking in the healthcare setting and it’s application in many other industries. This workshop will provide healthcare staff with an overview of lean thinking when applied with the healthcare industry
Clinicians use the scientific method to diagnose and treat patients – which is the foundation of evidence based medicine. This workshop will show how lean thinking employs the same scientific method to diagnose the root causes of broken healthcare systems and using evidence based management come up with the appropriate countermeasures to improve patient experience and safety, relieve the overburden on hospital staff and treat more patients while saving hospitals’ resources.
Participants on this 1 day workshop will show how to visualise the core end-to-end patient journeys and the critical support processes through your hospital and will go through our learning about how lean thinking has to be adapted to a healthcare environment. Finally it will discuss the role of the value stream manager in implementing change across the hospital.
Through instruction, small group discussions and exercises, the workshop will show the participants how to: -
Realistically reduce patient length of stay by more than half
Typically over 85% of Medical Patient’s length of stay (LoS) consists of Waiting Time. Time spent waiting for diagnostics, treatment and therapies etc. It is during these waiting times where it both becomes un-safe for the patient and the money is pouring out of the system. Mapping the Patient’s Journey in your hospital (end to end from the patients perspective) will enable you, for the first time, to see where these waits reside, enabling you to get to the root causes of these waits thereby enabling their systematic elimination.
Enabling Safe and Risk free bed reductions
In today’s economic environment there is now, more than ever, pressure to reduce costs through ward closures. However it is both un-safe for the patient and stressful for your staff, to consider closing wards until you have significantly reduced the average medical LoS. Once you have achieved a reduction in LoS by more than half you can then make safe and informed decisions about ward closures.
Reduce Medical ‘Outliers’ on Surgical wards to zero
When the pressure is on to admit medical patients, often the only available option is to either place them in the wrong medical specialty beds (off template) or worst still outlie them onto Surgical wards. This practice is know to extend LoS, it dismays Clinician who then have to perform ‘safari ward rounds’ and causes cancellations of, revenue generating, elective procedures. By reducing Medical LoS and effect the number of outliers, present at any given time, can be reduced to zero.
Calculate the staffing levels (capacity) to meet genuine patient demand.
By truly understanding, both, patient demand and the work involved in meeting the patient’s needs lean thinking provides a scientific method for accurately calculating the required staffing levels
Win the ‘Hearts and Minds’ of your Clinicians
Clinicians use scientific, evidence based approaches when diagnosing and treating patients. They frequently (and often quite rightly) are both bemused and dismayed by management approaches and decisions. However once you can demonstrate to clinicians that you too, are adopting a scientific approach, employing evidence based management to diagnose and treat broken processes then any perceived hostility or lack of co-operation from clinicians is normally transformed into mutual trust and respect.
You will benefit most from this workshop if you are a healthcare executive, physician, nurse, allied health, service improvement or other healthcare administrator who wants to move your organisation to become a safer, more effective and efficient provider of patient care.
Making Savings of £1,000 per Department / Ward per Month
Making Lean Work in Healthcare
The Lean Enterprise Academy is a non-profit Academy established to develop knowledge of Lean Thinking and its implementation and to disseminate this knowledge through publications and workshops.
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