Lean Healthcare Services

With the objective of recognizing and eliminating waste and errors through improving the processes that support defect-free healthcare delivery, our organization offers leadership guidance and organizational education that can assist you to move to a better operational place.

In 2006 Healthcare Performance Partner, joined forces with Lean Healthcare West creating HPPLHW, LLC which offers clients a complete package of proven TPS/Lean services. Results of the combined approaches of education and targeted rapid improvement have reinforced the success of joint efforts to build internal competency and sustainability with the reVEIW© Course and guide client staff to fix critical problems now with Rapid improvement Kaizen events.

This approach is unique in the Lean Healthcare industry, offered by our experienced Lean practitioners with backgrounds in both Healthcare and Industry. Your organization will realize immediate and long term results while making Lean a way of conducting daily work. The enthusiasm of staff for adopting Lean with this method is both gratifying to observe and improvements can be objectively measured.

Here is the pattern that has proven most successful in the hospitals in which we have recently implemented TPS/Lean:

1. Senior leadership education/organizational planning

• This is not only essential to determine the leadership commitment and engagement, and to establish a realistic goal for implementation. Organizational success with this program depends completely on alignment of senior leadership direction, understanding and participation.

2. Middle management education

• Generally a full-day retreat event that includes a presentation by the CEO to establish this work as a priority, and education to initiate the understanding and implementation of the system.

3. Kaizen events

• 5-day events that focus on one high value "process" that justifies a significant commitment of resources. With goals of reducing waste, frustration and improving service to patients; 6-12 front line staff and key stakeholders directly involved with the work selected will be guided through the "process" discovery and correction process. Thorough work process understanding and data collection our staff will assist client staff in this endeavor.

4. reVIEW© Course 8-week session (two day/week); includes:

• 14 hours of participant training (maximum 16 participants/course), conducted two hours/week over a seven week period, in which participants are given assignments to apply the principles and tools learned to something that pertains to their current work; each week’s lesson scaffolds on the previous week and participants produce real improvements while they learn the process and develop habits that will contribute to economizing their work
• One-on-one coaching of the participants with the work they have chosen for the course; this assures that participants are clear on the concepts and that they receive individual assistance applying what they’ve learned to the work they have chosen to improve
• A 4-hour coaching class to prepare willing/chosen graduates of the participant course to coach co-workers through the problem solving process

Choosing the first course participants is critical in starting the program on solid ground; generally a mix of upper and middle management, educators, quality and risk management and frontline staff assures that all levels of the organization get involved, which is essential in establishing independence and sustainability. Ideally, over time each unit will develop at least 2 strong “coaches”, to whom the staff looks for problem solving assistance and whose responsibilities will be to insure that no problem goes unaddressed or unreported and that improvement activities are generated.

Additionally, HPPLHW offers our customers the capacity to teach the reVIEW© Course internally. We offer a subsequent instructor course (up to 2 instructors from the graduates of the each course of 16 participants) and another 8-week session to allow instructors to co-teach and co-coach with us to build confidence and independence. On completion of the co-teaching and co-coaching, qualified instructors will be certified to teach the course in your own institution. All course materials have been developed and used by HPPLHW staff and are available to new instructors to make this a complete turn-key program.

Our staff assists the customer organization in planning future courses to define growth of Lean activities through the organization. This definition insures rigor, regularity and involvement as Lean takes hold in an organization.

5. External Coaching

• HPPLHW’s staff of Lean-experienced engineers, manufacturers and health care innovators are available to act as coaches for complex problems or when an organization is ready to take a step to the “next level”.

For more information about bringing Lean to your healthcare organization contact us at: chagood@hpp.bz or call (615) 206-0191

“The HPP team's ability to achieve buy-in from our management team and our Associates was a key factor in the success of our Lean Healthcare initiatives.” William T. Sugg, President & CEO Sumner Regional Health Systems

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