LEAN helps healthcare organizations quicken and stabilize processes, improving quality

LEAN methodology has been used in manufacturing and businesses for years to help streamline and simplify processes. LEAN in Healthcare, utilizing the same basic tools, is increasingly being utilized to help Healthcare-related organizations become more efficient and financially responsible.

By definition, LEAN allows an organization to quickly improve upon and stabilize processes through identification and elimination of waste in a value stream or process so that standardization of work can be obtained. For these benefits alone, Healthcare organizations have sought out and benefited from this fast-acting methodology.

At SBTI, we understand that LEAN is not just a tool set. Nor is it just a cost-reduction program. Rather, LEAN is an operational philosophy that brings organizations to a level of consistent, reliable and stable performance never seen before.

Overview: Lean in Healthcare: Streamline, Simplify and Standardize within a Structure for Success (.pdf)

Why SBTI LEAN?

The consultants at SBTI are highly experienced in the healthcare industry; including having successfully run quality programs within hospitals for more than 20 years. Programs coached, mentored and facilitated have led to increased capacity, accelerated turnaround times, increased revenues, and, most importantly, a higher level of patient safety and satisfaction. SBTI has developed highly effective leaders for our clients in the application of LEAN methods in Healthcare by creating courses specifically designed for this industry. For example, LEAN LEADER® Program is an exclusive SBTI course designed to create competency in LEAN techniques that is focused on the needs and demands of the healthcare industry.

LEAN, when done properly, is a cultural change. It requires commitment, dedication, a new way of thinking and discipline. Without commitment from all levels of the organization, especially leadership, LEAN will not perform to expectations. SBTI works hand-in-hand with our healthcare clients, from the executive suite to the patient floor, to create the structure that ensures understanding, planning, support and the development of the people who will lead and be effected by change.

Linked to Leadership and Strategic Initiatives

Leadership must be prepared for their significant role in the cultural transformation that comes from implementing LEAN. Understanding and planning for change is essential to the success of the program. With executive-level training in the applications and effects of LEAN, leaders learn how to position LEAN, based on their own strategic initiatives, to deliver breakthrough results. At SBTI, we outline and implement a structure for your program that assures success throughout an organization. A deployment plan is developed that maps out a commitment for ownership, resource management, accountability and communications for the program.

Lean Leader®: Drive Lean initiatives using proven tools and true Lean roadmaps (.pdf)

Here are a few of our LEAN in Healthcare successes:

• 45% reduction in medication delivery time
• Improved CT exam cycle time and increased capacity seven-fold
• Reduced average length of stay (ALOS) in a Minor Treatment Center by one half
• Improved CMS regulatory compliance within one week
• Reduced the rate of pending requests for authorization, improving the timeliness of approvals and increasing member and provider satisfaction
• Reduced staffing costs and improved nursing floor utilization by 30 percent

For a definition of the key LEAN terms like 5S, DOTWIMP, Kan Ban, Poke Yoke, Value Stream Mapping, visit our Glossary of Terms.

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