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Drive Lean Sigma Performance Improvement into Any Hospital or Healthcare Environment “The Affordable Care Act (ACA) looks like it is around to stay. It will require hospitals and other healthcare organizations to become ruthlessly efficient to survive reimbursement rate reductions. Even if ACA fell, managed care organizations have caught on. They will leverage patient volume to drive reimbursement rates steadily down. Medicare and Medicaid will follow. Lean Sigma may not be the only way healthcare organizations will survive, but it's a proven solution. In Lean Sigma–Rebuilding Capability in Healthcare, Dr. Wedgwood has presented a roadmap to successful implementation of Lean Sigma.” –Richard H. Allen, Dr.P.H., Allen & Allen Consulting, LLC Lean Sigma, widely proven in other industries, can offer even greater value in healthcare. In this guide, Ian Wedgwood walks you through all leadership aspects associated with planning, executing, sustaining, or reinvigorating Lean Sigma in your hospital, system, or clinic. Drawing on his extensive experience helping healthcare organizations improve, Wedgwood explains Lean Sigma without “stat speak.” Focusing on care providers'unique challenges, he offers a practical roadmap for making Lean or Six Sigma work. He demonstrates it through real case studies, illuminating key facets of change that are too often ignored. Coverage includes • How failure points in conventional change methods prevent performance improvement • Lean Sigma's structured change approach: why infrastructure and sequencing matter so much • Integrating Lean Sigma with strategy and operations • Elevating individual process performance • Launching a Lean Sigma program or revitalizing a stalled initiative • Learning from experience, and increasing program maturity Whatever your Lean Sigma leadership role–from patient-facing staff to senior executive to performance improvement specialist–this guide gives you an indispensable foundation for success.

Although physicians and hospitals are receiving incentives to use electronic health records (EHRs), there is little emphasis on workflow and process improvement by providers or vendors. As a result, many healthcare organizations end up with incomplete product specifications and poor adoption rates.Process Improvement with Electronic Health Records: A Stepwise Approach to Workflow and Process Management walks you through a ten-step approach for applying workflow and process management principles regardless of what stage your organization is in its EHR journey. Introducing workflow and process mapping as essential elements in healthcare improvement, it includes detailed guidance, helpful tools, and case studies in each chapter. It also: Compares EHR workflow and process management to other continuous quality improvement methodologies Highlights the processes that need to be addressed in EHR workflow and process redesign Describes the level of detail necessary for workflow and process mapping to be effective Explains how to create change agents and offers time-tested change management tools The book describes the process for getting stakeholders to create, document, and validate new workflows and processes. Using case studies to illustrate the unique requirements of health information technology (HIT) and EHR acquisition, this reference provides you with simple yet powerful tools along with step-by-step guidance for the effective use of workflow and process mapping within healthcare.

Typically entrenched and systemic, healthcare problems require the sort of comprehensive solutions that can only be addressed by a change in culture and a shift in thinking. Applying Lean in Healthcare: A Collection of International Case Studies demonstrates how honest appraisal, intelligent planning, and vigilant follow-up have led to dramatic imp