Opportunities For Improvement Using Lean Management And Six Sigma Principles

Evaluating the Physician Health Care Services Center is quite demanding compared to assessing the performance of a traditional manufacturing company or any other form of enterprise. The evaluation procedure and productivity it is hard in the healthcare center since institutions with human health restoration are on the right track. Conversely, there is a challenging and involving evaluation procedure with regard to productivity; it is paramount to have a solid basis on which decisions of the organization should be based. With the intention of determining the productivity of the physician care services, I will employ two of the key metrics: overall service and productivity of the organization and output per labour.

The opportunity for Six Sigma and Lean Management principles has been moved gradually, and the opportunity has been offered to expand the methodologies and implementations in healthcare reform for process improvement. The Six Sigma principle takes the company to an improved level through the application of statistical techniques and tools (Balushi, Sohal, Singh, Hajri, Farsi and Abri, 2014). The innovations in healthcare reform have become data-driven and systematic designs for the Six Sigma method in healthcare settings. Another opportunity is that the value-stream map gives a holistic picture of the organizational value chain. The lean management element is to seek each and every chance to decrease the attempt and variability to organizational issues such as complexity reduction, visual management and the method that identify the workplace, scrub, sort, sustain, standardize and strengthen, line balancing, cellular production and so on (De Koeijer, Paauwe and Huijsman, 2014)

According to the metrics in week 5, it is identified that the lead does not analyze the indicators of the procedure to establish where the improvement points are but focuses on the ineffectiveness of the procedure flow. This is where the main opportunities for improvement are. According to the study of Mason, Nicolay and Darzi (2015), the process and concept of lean management in healthcare reform lead to time associated with cost reduction and have to do with internal quality. This is because the customer is always interested in the end product. On the contrary, the patient can take part in the whole procedure. With the intention to deal with cost-cutting pressures, reductions in the cost of the maintenance, administrative or nursing staff are unlikely and can impact the care process entirely. Cost reduction is one of the best opportunities in healthcare reform without jeopardizing patient care and looking for alternative solutions or methodologies that are not even related to the healthcare industry (Trzeciak, Mercincavage, Angelini, Cogliano, Damuth, Roberts and Mazzarelli, 2018).

In the view of Yaduvanshi and Sharma (2017), lean management and Six Sigma are the procedures that provide the enhancement approaches in the industry. These approaches have saved many of the organization’s dollars and billions while enhancing or improving their service, back-office transactional procedures, manufacturing, distribution and service. By using lean management in healthcare reform, lean focuses on waste elimination and the overall cycle improvement within the procedure.

In conclusion, it can be said that there are complexities posed by the multi-payor system, which also gives many of the chances for the organization to tighten up the metrics. On the other hand, it is examined that practice empowered the staff and involved the workflow with the intention of examining chances to reduce delay in the remaining ten days by changing the procedure, automating by other means and eliminating redundancies. The discussion above identified that healthcare managers should look into lean management with the intention of making a difference in the companies and knowing exactly what they want to accomplish.

Five Measurable Stretch Goals

For any of the companies, setting the aims and goals of the organization enhances adherence, gives incentives and helps measure progress. It is quite noticeable that the leaders will need to form a team in healthcare with the intention of implementing the changes in the organization. Conversely, the next step is to come up with the aims for the leaders to keep the team on track. The goals must be specific, achievable, measurable, associated and time-bound. In the meetings, the members must regularly discuss the goals and aim to estimate the progress, ensure the availability of the resources, maintain responsibility, and make adjustments as needed. Physician HealthCare Service is having a lot of problems that need proper resolution. With the intention to eradicate such concerns, the leaders of Physician HealthCare Services need to form some goals. While on the other hand, lean and six sigma have been employed in general in the healthcare industry, there is an enormous opportunity to use these two methodologies so that the organization can be able to streamline the procedures and improve their quality concurrently (Zhu, Johnson and Sarkis, 2018).

A few of the possible aims are reducing the operational expenses by 30% in the next three months, developing the quality improvement procedure, developing the services to add the walk-in services in the pharmacy department, delegating the management duties and their tasks efficiently by the end of the year, reducing the workload of the president and enhancing the effectiveness. This might also enhance the patient volume this year by at least 10% and develop or expand the care services during weekends. Zhu et al. (2018) determined that the opportunity quantity for the defect is known as the Six Sigma opportunity, where the customer expectations are from outside and are known as a Six Sigma defect. The goals also include the enhancement of employee satisfaction to 99% by employing management techniques or proper scheduling by the end of the next six or seven months (Trzeciak et al., 2018).

On the other hand, the goals listed above are all expanded and noted from Dr. Tobias’s concerns in the board meetings. He has been thinking of selling the organization due to his possible loss in the medical market in future. His concerns involve enhancing the cost associated with operations and equipment. Thus, one goal is to reduce operational expenses by employing the techniques for improvement associated with Six Sigma and Lean Management principles. In other words, at the very same time, he is concerned about other practices, such as employing walk-in services to go along with pharmacies. In this case, the performance improvement project’s aim would be to implement walk-in services to remain competitive within the PCS pharmacy department. It is noted that Dr. Tobias is currently taking accountability for the president and medical director of the Physician Healthcare Services. He works as a Certified Medical Review Officer for employees whenever it is essential for drug testing. Hence, it is quite difficult for Dr. Tobias to focus on several concerns at once and in detail.

References

Al-Balushi, S., Sohal, A. S., Singh, P. J., Al Hajri, A., Al Farsi, Y. M., & Al Abri, R. (2014). Readiness factors for lean implementation in healthcare settings–a literature review. Journal of health organization and management, 28(2), 135-153.

De Koeijer, R. J., Paauwe, J., & Huijsman, R. (2014). Toward a conceptual framework for exploring multilevel relationships between Lean Management and Six Sigma, enabling HRM, strategic climate and outcomes in healthcare. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(21), 2911-2925.

Mason, S. E., Nicolay, C. R., & Darzi, A. (2015). The use of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies in surgery: A systematic review. The Surgeon, 13(2), 91-100.

Trzeciak, S., Mercincavage, M., Angelini, C., Cogliano, W., Damuth, E., Roberts, B. W., … & Mazzarelli, A. J. (2018). Lean Six Sigma to Reduce Intensive Care Unit Length of Stay and Costs in Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation. Journal for Healthcare Quality, 40(1), 36-43.

Yaduvanshi, D., & Sharma, A. (2017). Lean Six Sigma in Health Operations: Challenges and Opportunities—‘Nirvana for Operational Efficiency in Hospitals in a Resource Limited Settings’. Journal of Health Management, 19(2), 203-213.

Zhu, Q., Johnson, S., & Sarkis, J. (2018, January). Lean Six Sigma and environmental sustainability: a hospital perspective. In Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal (pp. 1-17). Taylor & Francis.