SixSigmaTV.Net Helps Harrison Medical Center Deploy Lean Six Sigma and Receive Their First Press-Ganey Award for Patient Satisfaction

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Jeff and Steve are all scrubbed up ready to clean house!

SixSigmaTV.Net has helped Harrison Medical Center (HMC) obtain their first Press-Ganey award for statistically improving Patient Satisfaction in the Ambulatory Surgery category. HMC's rating started at the 24th percentile with the project started in July of 2010. HMC recently closed out the month of March at the 89th percentile, and 65% increase. Basic Lean Six Sigma concepts and having employees that do the work improve the process, are a few of the basic tools HMC employed.

According to the CEO, our program changed the culture of Harrison from a “Flavor-of-the-Month” mentality to one of acceptance of Lean Six Sigma. By including the people performing the work in the actual improvement efforts, we considerably increased buy-in throughout the entire organization. Exceeded initial hard dollar project savings target of $3mm to over $9mm in the first year alone.

Produced and led four (4) Green Belt courses training over 110 HMC leaders and project managers in the principles of Lean Six Sigma. Additionally, produced and led five (5) one-day courses on advanced Lean Six Sigma topics. Implemented a 10-module on-line Six Sigma White Belt Awareness course, certifying over 450 employees and reaching out to over 500 others.

Improved records scanning process from 7 days to under 3 days. Each day of reduction is equal to $1mm/year in income, along with a FTE reduction (6-5 people), and 300% increase in throughput and capacity.

Improved the PreAdmit Screening process (PAS): - Reduced records flow from 14 locations on two-floors, to 4 locations within a 50-foot area. - Reduced phone calls to MD offices from an average of 10 per Patient case, to less than one (1). - Reduced Overtime expenses by over 90%, saving HMC over $500,000 per year.

Leaned out the OR Clean Core Supply room using 5S, reducing inventory by over $350,000 and finding $250,000 in sutures previously written off, for a total expense reduction of over $600,000. Transitioned supply chain to a Kanban system which lead to 15k savings per month due to pull system and visual management of inventory. This also led to a significant decrease in the time to locate and re-supply inventory items.

Leaned out the PreOp Holding and PACU supplies by over $100,000 and increase floor space by over 500 square feet at $6,000/square foot. - Implemented 5s on the Patient floors, reducing supply par levels by over $100,000 per floor.

Improved room service food quality by delivering food at the right temperature 99% of the time versus a previous accuracy of under 40%. This led to a significant increase in patient satisfaction (Press Ganey) scores regarding food quality.

Improved the Clinical Documentation process accuracy, increased reimbursements over $4mm/year, with the pilot. Full-scale implementations estimates increases closer to $10mm.

Conducted an MSA (Measurement System Analysis) to identify coding errors in the Labor Delivery Recovery Post-partum (LDRP) process. This lead to re-designing the LDRP coding process, balancing and leveling staffing, accurately matching financial requirements and reducing fiscal year budget by $1mm (hard savings).

Transitioned the OR Case Preference Cards manual process to an automated system that correctly matches AMA CPT9 codes. This transition eliminated inventory errors for surgeries, reduced supply chain issues and assisted in OR throughput and capacity increase.

Lab Kaizen/5s. This event lead to an initial 40k savings in inventory, re-acclimation of 200 square feet and increased throughput and capacity. The transition to a Kanban inventory management system saves 5k per month.

Cath Lab – The bar code supply replenishment system was experiencing issues that included items not properly being tracked, restocked or rotated creating a supply chain with excessive waste and material expiration issues of $800,000 per year. Baseline metrics identified a sigma level of 2.13, DPMO of 264,477 and a yield of 73.55%. The team identified process failures within the materials supply chain and implementing improvements like Visual Management, Poke Yoke and KanBan. The improvements brought the materials supply chain process to a sigma level of 3.53, DPMO of 20,743 and a yield of 97.73%. Implementing these improvements within the Cath Lab supply chain generated a cost savings of $780,000 annually.

Improved Immunization Process, reducing Patient discharge cycle times from over three (3) hours to under30 minutes. This single issue impacts Patient satisfaction greater than any other issues for In-Patients.

Implemented a Shared Medical Appointment (SMA) pilot program for HMC’s wound clinic, focusing on Patients with diabetes. HMC can now bill insurance for over seven (7) Patients/hour, versus one (1) Patient/hour, while significantly improving Patient understanding of their disease and how to properly manage it.