Coffee, Community and Change — for the Better
I recently had the pleasure of attending an Indy Lean Coffee meeting at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center. The meeting was adeptly co-emceed by Mark Ryan with Franciscan Health Indianapolis and Sarah White with Indiana University Health. Christopher (Chris) Tucker and his team at the VA Medical Center hosted the event. What is a Lean Coffee? It’s really quite simple. Participants come together, brainstorm an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was collectively generated. The Indy Lean Coffee event brought together Lean practitioners from all the major health care systems in the Indianapolis area. In addition to discussing issues that are common among the teams, we were able to share some of the best practices used throughout the city. The highlight of the day was the tour of several areas of the VA Hospital led by Chris and members of his team. We were able to interact with staff members to see Lean in action, particularly in relation to direct patient care. We all came away with a greater appreciation of the work that the staff at the VA Medical Center are doing to provide care for our veterans. Over the past few years health care, and hospitals in particular, has been under increased scrutiny to cut costs and increase patient satisfaction. Through the efforts of process improvement teams such as the one at the VA Medical Center and the other organizations represented at the Indy Lean Coffee meeting, significant savings have been achieved while striving to put patient care at the forefront of these process improvement activities. I look forward to the next Indy Lean Coffee meeting to discover the new and exciting ways that Lean and process improvement tools can be used in health care. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreSmall Steps to Big Improvements
Organizations often launch large process improvement initiatives with a “big bang.” Well-intentioned leaders bring in high-powered consultants to train a handful of staff to tackle the company’s biggest headaches. Go big or go home, right? Who doesn’t want their organization to improve, as rapidly as possible. Let’s change the culture, and let’s do it NOW! Although most of these large scale rollouts start off well, they sometimes fizzle out in staff frustration. After months of intensive Kaizens and Six Sigma projects, middle managers that have been pulled away from their regular jobs to “do process improvement” can’t keep up the pace. The short-term gains just aren’t sustainable. Guadalupe Regional Medical Center (GRMC) in Seguin, Texas may have found the secret to doing process improvement the right way – with every team member and every team taking a small step, every day, toward making the organization a better place. There’s a daily rhythm of improvement at all levels of the organization, report consultants Jerry Berlanga and Brock Husby describe in the September issue of ISE Magazine. How did this come about? A few years ago, GRMC leaders found that they were missing consistent follow through on key goals and action plans. They knew they needed to engage more staff in the process. So, they implemented Lean Daily Management (LDM). LDM utilizes four parts: Leader Rounds – Each day, leaders visit key departments to learn what is happening, understand the challenges staff are facing, and to remove obstacles and roadblocks. The focus on ideas and actions that can be implemented today or this week. LDM Boards – Dashboards are prominently displayed in every department. They trigger visual management and regular problem-solving huddles (10-15 min.) each day. Leaders review the LDM boards with staff, pulling ideas that need to be escalated to the senior leader LDM board. Problems that may have festered for years are now exposed daily. Leaders act more as coaches, asking smart questions and pulling ideas from staff, rather than dictating solutions. Leader Daily Disciplines – These are the daily, weekly and monthly activities that senior leaders must do to keep the management model working (scheduling time for rounding, etc.) Lean Projects – These are pulled from staff LDM boards when issues can’t be quickly resolved. At GRMC, senior leadership team members first began using LDM themselves. Then they rolled it out slowly, from one department to the next. As more teams became proficient at LDM, they identified a number of medium to large projects that could not be tackled in LDM daily huddles. To solve the issues, multidisciplinary and cross functional teams formed organically. For example, one multidisciplinary team tackled improving the hospital’s diet order process. The team decreased the number of inaccuracies by 80 percent, and also increased efficiency and improved patient satisfaction and patient safety! Want to learn more about LDM and how to make your workplace better? Check out the article here. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive workplace....
Read MoreHelp…It’s Out of Control!
A few months ago I helped a team with a seemingly easy question: will our existing equipment satisfy our new standard operating procedure (SOP)? At first glance it appeared to be a no-brainer…of course it will. But after taking a deeper look at the new SOP and the uncertainty of related federal regulations, the question did not seem to be quite so mundane. To help to validate the equipment, the team collected data from several runs. The data was then used to construct control charts. Control charts are very useful in showing how well a process is working over time. A control chart includes specification (spec) limits (usually established by the equipment manufacturer or a SOP) and control limits (based on the performance of the process). By collecting and graphing (i.e. time, temperature, or output) about the process over time, one is able to see how well the process (in this case a machine) is functioning. One is able to spot outliers or other anomalies that might be missed by other monitoring methods. Through the data analysis and accompanying control charts, the team showed that the equipment was in fact functioning within the manufacturer’s specification on a consistent basis. Based on this data, the department that relied on this piece of equipment avoided the need to build a new facility, buy new equipment, and hire and train new staff. The team was able to save the company an estimated $1M through cost avoidance! Control charts are a great way to demonstrate how well a process is functioning. While this type of chart is often associated with manufacturing, it can be used in many situations to evaluate the output of a process. A control chart can give an excellent depiction of how things are going within a process and be used as a basis for further root cause analysis. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreWhat’s In An Acronym?
A few days ago my wife told me that she needed a PSA. This was a little confusing to me, as I immediately thought of a prostate specific antigen test, used to detect prostate cancer risk in men. Seeing my puzzled look, she explained that she was talking about a public service announcement. As we continued our discussion, we conducted a quick search of the internet and found almost 800 other examples of the use of the“PSA”acronym, including Professional Skating Association, Professional Sports Authenticator, and Photographic Society of America. Just as an acronym can have many meanings, a company can also develop its own acronym vocabulary, with varying definitions. Working in the pharmaceutical industry for several years, I have experienced this first hand. At one time, the company distributed a booklet to new employees that included the majority of the organization’s acronyms. Unfortunately, the booklet was out of date as soon as it was printed and the practice of distributing the booklet was soon stopped. The continuous improvement (CI) field, and more specifically Lean Six Sigma (LSS), has its own set of acronyms. Probably the most frequently used in LSS is DMAIC. This acronym can be broken down as follows: Define: the issue(s), the project goals, and the needs of the customer and the business Measure: the frequency and severity of the problem (errors) Analyze: the root causes of the problems Improve: the current process to remove the root causes and eliminate the rrors Control: the new process to ensure accurate implementation and adherence By understanding the general steps of the DMAIC process, one gains a better appreciation of work done in a CI project. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
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