Standardize Work

In healthcare, throughput refers to the ED process that impacts patient flow (Jarousse 2011). Process and flow began to be scrutinized for opportunities to improve the overcrowding by becoming more efficient. Due to this new process focus, throughput was born. This is also the point where lean flow or lean thinking became prevalent into healthcare from a manufacturing stand point to improve throughput. Lean principles revolve around removing non value added steps and standardizing work flow and processes. When applied aggressively hospital wide, lean principles can have a dramatic effect on productivity, cost, and quality. Numerous books concerning lean healthcare have been published in recent years (Crane & Noon 2011).

Training Topic: The training topic purposed is, leader standard work, which is a lean tool that helps leaders to identify what is value-add and non-value-add in their work. Once a leader can identify what is non-value add, they begin to reduce the time spent completing these tasks and spend more time coaching their employees to problem solve and improve patient care. In lean value is determined by what the customer is willing to pay for. Consequently, in healthcare, the customer is the patient. Users of this tool do not have to be formal leaders within the organization, but the intent is to enable individuals to manage their daily, weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly activities strategically and to eliminate the the non-value add activities.

Toyota is making only "what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed. Toyota is using impute from workers and their culture encourages employees to learn from their mistakes and successes and failures of each other.

Many healthcare organizations set goals and objections and write mission statements that reflect the way they want the public to see how healthcare is provided. This is done to guide how their healthcare providers practice daily. In order to meet these goals and objects it is necessary to have in place processes and procedures to ensure the results will be what is expected which is a positive patient experience and outcome. In order for our organization to reach this goal there is a coaching and execution package that will provide step-by-step processes and procedures to ensure that everyone is doing the same thing at the same time

“Lean is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value-added activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the **product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.” Lockwood [24].

The final identified recommendation is the use of a standardized action plan format that will provide the framework for change. Defined expectations and deadlines will ensure that progress is maintained amongst the numerous and diverse clinical settings. My role-modeling of this step will teach my management team how to utilize this tool as well as assist with setting the expectation that they utilize the tool with their staff members as well.

Hospitals are on continuous mission for quality improvement; utilizing new technology, techniques, and research on what works and what does not, as well as persistently training new personnel and meeting the needs of patients. Still, hospitals are devoted to quality improvement but follow different courses, which support increasing observance to treatment etiquette and improve patient outcomes. Hospitals make the most of different approaches and models of quality improvement, such as the use of Lean, Six Sigma (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2008/2016), and the PlanDo-Study-Act (Ibach, 2009) models for improvement. Usually quality improvement efforts are a five step process which

Company management is committed to adopting advanced manufacturing techniques such as benchmarking and just-in-time (JIT). The corporate culture necessary for the success of such techniques is evolving and worker empowerment is already a major program. In addition, workers are allowed several hours away from regular work assignments each week for training programs conferring on budgets and work improvements and applying the ABC system.

Brief description of their model – Was initiated by the chairman of the board. CEO was neutral at first but became a strong supporter. Have partnered with Health Performance Partners to provide Lean coaching to central performance team and executives. Very pleased with this group. Started with Model areas and moved to daily management system 2 ½ years later. Were 90% tools and 10% thinking to start and are now 70% thinking and 30% tools. They selected 7-8 major areas of the organization (about 100

Working in a corporate environment has helped me recognize that medical work entails a lot of administrative detail and hierarchy. I find that attention to things such as workflow, meeting deadlines and dependability are critical to efficient delivery of nursing services. I am planning to implement these skills while working in complex hospital organizations as a nurse.

The service organization that I will be speaking about is Spectrum Health in Big Rapids. The lean management system elements are a powerful structure that will improve all aspects of the organization if they are implemented and followed. The leader standard work is the “engine” of the vehicle and is what gives it the power to move ahead. It is important at Spectrum Health to have a strong engine because it creates a strong operating system. From what I have gathered at Spectrum Health is that this organization does have a strong engine and they do operate effectively. Spectrum Health organization in 2013 is more than a 3 billion dollar organization and they are effectively cutting cost from the previous years. The standard of work throughout the organization is being utilized (some departments not so much) and it is effectively creating a smooth operating system.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a tool that is used to define the work elements of a project and identify its entire scope. It is the map of the project which identifies all elements of the project and allows managers to keep track and control of it. It is made of a hierarchy which facilitates the evaluation of cost, time and performance at all levels of the project life-cycle and organization. The structure illustrates the smaller units and allows for adaptation and quick communication if there a problems which need to be addressed. Definitions of each task should be clear and avoid overlapping in

The Delphi panel stressed the importance of regular performance measuring to ensure improvements are sustained. When staff understood the reasons behind the changes and how they improved the productivity and quality of care for patients, they were more likely to sustain the implementations. Developing a culture with the appropriate elements to support continuous improvement was seen as vital to see success with the lean methodologies.

The fourth chapter is titled “Standardize Work.” The theme is “to identify how the work is well defined and how the effective team effort is exerted on the maintenance of the same repetitive work in sequence”. Thus, the standardization and the effort towards lean production is important (Ballé and Ballé).

processes, and its goal is to correct products required by customers (Right Product) at the right