Track: Lean Six Sigma Competition

Abstract

Healthcare organizations implement the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology to achieve performance in terms of cost, quality, and productivity. The purpose of this paper is to implement LSS in the casualty of a private hospital in India to mitigate the issue of high turnaround time (TAT) of the blood samples. The DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control) strategy was utilized as the model of problem-solving during LSS implementation. A team comprising two doctors, three nursing staff, and two support staff was formed to carry out the project. In this work, we found that multiple variables could impact the high TAT of the blood samples in casualty, thereby prolonging the patient stay and crowding. In a phased manner, the casualty workforce under the guidance of the LSS professional could able to utilize the power of simple LSS tools like Process Flow Map, Ishikawa Diagram, SIPOC, 5-Why analysis, SPC, etc, to find the root causes and take corrective actions during the implementation process. As a result, the average TAT is reduced from 164 minutes to a new average of 84 minutes. This study was restricted to a specific area in a multispecialty hospital in India. Hence the validity can be built on by including other departments in the same hospital or doing similar studies in other hospitals. The findings will empower the researchers, professionals, and managers in the healthcare sector to incorporate a similar way of hands-on training and simultaneous LSS implementation for continuous process improvement.