You will understand how to use DMAIC six sigma methodology on hospital example. There are all 5 phases explained with some tools that team used to improve admision and stay termination process.
This article covers:
- Hospital process pain – the business case
- Define phase – hospital project
- Analyze phase of hospital DMAIC
- Improve phase – DMAIC project
- Control phase – hospital example
- Key takeaways about DMAIC six sigma
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Hospital process pain – the business case
Hospital in the Mania city have extended their building and added some new wards. Hospital capacities have increased from 1000 to 1500 beds. Building extension team have forgotten to review patients admission and stay termination process.
Of course, current process set up was not sustainable. Admision employees were suffering from overtimes and lack of space to store patients personal things. On the other hand, patients were waiting too long time to be introduced to, and released from hospital. Frustration was increasing on both sides.
Here is a link to download project charter template for your usage, with the brief description of each section.
How to set top priorities: Business case- read here
Define phase – hospital project
Teams goal was to improve current waiting time to 20 minutes maximum. Hospital management saw this effort as crucial, so they asked weekly report out.
After project charter creation and project kick off, team made SIPOC for both addressed processes. This high level map helped team to understand project boundaries, and to be unified on the processes in the scope.
I do videos, blog posts, and all templates in my free time. I will appreciate if you can donate me a cup of cofee, for more energy in my creation. (1 dollar counts, too 😉 Click on this link: I would like to support Erik in his effort
Project measure phase
Detailed measuring showed that there are waves of patients coming to hospital. The biggest wave is from 10 am to 2 pm. Patients are usually waiting 2 hours in average. There is 1 hour waiting time at the stay termination. 10 minutes each patient is spending on filling incoming paper documentation. Information must be rewritten to electronic form afterwards. It takes 5 minutes to re-write it to the computer.
15 minutes takes undressing patient to nightclothes. Personal things are put to the storing box. Then put to the shelf.
There are 250 patients entering or leaving hospital per day.
Quick win for team was temporary agreement between hospital departments about different times for patients leaving hospital. Different times helped to distribute people during a day. So, waiting time for leaving people was decreased to 20 minutes. The biggest challenge in leaving process, was personal things box finding. It took about 10 minutes in average to find it. Storing system needed to be improved.
Six sigma example in restaurant – read here
I provide 30 minutes of consultations for free:
Analyze phase of Hospital DMAIC
Brainstorming and Why-because diagram helped team to uncover other improvement opportunities in storing. Storing empty boxes, large boxes shape, boxes searching and storing organization are few of them.
There is one standard plastic storing box. Boxes usually are half-filled. Opportunity for space saving was obvious.
Majority of the time, it is a commonsense usage, that drives changes.
Cubic box was redesigned to rectangle shape. New box height was decreased to fit average things volumes. This decreased required space in half. Racks were also re-designed, to fit new boxes. Each location and each box were identified with unique code. Codes are inserted to computer together with patient name. It is easily trackable now. Searching was decreased to 1 minute.
Fishbone diagram was used to reveal challenges on admission process. Work distribution, Capacities, Supporting systems, Data manual entering are just few opportunities needed to be addressed. Task and priorities to be resolved were identified.
Download fishbone template
Here is how fishbone template for download looks like:
There is task list template I use in my projects all the time included. It looks like this:
There is 5 whys analysis template included, On top of that:
You can download fishbone analysis, Task list and 5 whys template on the link below:
Why Lean and Six Sigma are used together? – read here
Improve phase – DMAIC project
User-friendly computer system was installed to whole hospital organization prior the project. Individual departments are sharing information through this system. Admission department and their requirements were incorporated to the system, now.
System allows patients to online reserve the time, they will enter hospital. Window is opened from 7am to 7pm. This helped to re-distribute noon peaks. Leaving patients are able to reserve times too. Waiting time at leaving is 10 minutes maximum now.
To decrease rewriting data from paper form, two computers were installed to waiting room. Computer skilled patients are able to fill their data to system independently. This helped to decrease manual entering by 60%. However paper form is still available.
Changes, and improvements have decreased demand on employees. It reduced capacities from current 7, to 4 required people. There are two shifts opened. 2 employees on morning shift, and 2 on afternoon.
Top 11 Six Sigma certification companies review – read here
Control phase – hospital example
Waiting time to enter the hospital is 15 minutes in average now. Noon peaks were reduced from 2 hours to 30 minutes. Goal 20 minutes waiting max, was not reached yet. But improvement is tremendous. There will be second project phase launched, after stabilizing current changes.
Processes were described in documentation reflecting ISO requirements. Waiting room space was visualized to navigate patients. There are easily created process performance reports for management in the computer.
Team was able to establish all changes within 4 months. Now they are in control phase and finetuning some special long-term tasks.
Key takeaways about Six Sigma DMAIC:
- It is a robust process improvement method
- It is a team effort on not obvious problem reason resolution
- There are 5 phases – Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control
- Improvement targeted based on data analysis
- Reduces variation in processes, in other words , repeatability is improved
- First understand current problems and pains to enable improvement changes
Do not be afraid to learn Lean Six Sigma tools. Do not be scared of heavy statistics, or using a lot of mathematics.
95% of the time I do not use it, at all. I do not like statistics. I do not like collecting data. Yes, there is a measure and analyze phase. But it only sounds terrible. In our example, cooks were able to drive changes. And they used watches to measure, and logic, that told them where to improve.
DMAIC Six Sigma example in Manufacturing – read here
I do videos, blog posts, and all templates for free, in my free time. I will appreciate if you can donate me a cup of cofee, for more energy in my creation. (1 dollar counts, too 😉 Click on this link: I would like to support Erik in his effort
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Yours sincerely Erik.
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