Using Lean Six Sigma to Improve Hospital based, Outpatient Imaging Satisfaction - Article Example

?USING LEAN SIX SIGMA TO IMPROVE HOSPITAL BASED, OUTPATIENT IMAGING SATISFACTION Using Lean Six Sigma to Improve Hospital based, Outpatient Imaging Satisfaction Using Lean Six Sigma to Improve Hospital based, Outpatient Imaging Satisfaction Methodist Willow-brook is a Houston based hospital where the culture of pay for performance exists. However, the conventional techniques to satisfy customer do not hold true in the case of the healthcare industry, hence, another system needs to be designed in order to full fill the need. Summary A typical healthcare institute like Methodist Willow-Brook attends to three types of patients: outpatients, inpatients and emergency patients. Since, the hospital uses the same equipments for all types of patients; therefore, the imaging department is uncertain as to who shall be prioritized when it comes to serving the patient. Therefore, the paper focuses on improving the service of the imaging department and brings into consideration the expectations of patients regarding the hospital. Unlike any commercial business, where greeting the customer and asking him to pay another visit soon, shall be considered good, such is not the case of the healthcare industry. In order to create an experience in the mind of the patients, service has to be personalized and focused. Previously, the hospital had wrongly focused on the process, procedure, safety and time to deliver the service; however, recent analysis suggested that customer satisfaction is about the consistency in the smooth conduct of the process as well as behavior of the staff. In order to ensure that Methodist achieves its objectives, it has decided to adopt a process that involves six sigma approaches and includes steps that are Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. Moreover, the customer satisfaction is the function of the service that is delivered to outpatients; therefore, the department has decided to pay special attention to these patients. Furthermore, the hospital uses Press Ganey service to assess its patient’s satisfaction. The scope of the service includes the conduction of tests such as MRI, CT, Ultrasound, nuclear medicine and X-ray, apart from focusing on outpatients and, thus limiting the scope. The volume modality table seems to confirm the strategy of the hospital as outpatients seems to be the most frequent user of the machinery as compared to others while their share is approximately 50% in the case of Ultrasound, MRI and nuclear medicine. Thus in order to measure the performance in achieving those objectives, a more focused approach was laid down by reviewing the past data of outpatient imaging. The data revealed that the customer’s satisfaction has a very strong correlation with the time that the patient has to wait after being called down to testing area. Thus, based on this finding, a research was conducted that also confirmed the earlier finding. Therefore, the process was redesigned in order to improve efficiency in the system such that the lagging time shall be minimized. This was initiated by forming the workflow of all the four areas involved in the process which includes scheduling, registration, imaging and specific modality. However, more important in this regard was the communication regarding the appointments that were made with the patients since the time can be interpreted in more than one ways, while there used to a background noise that made communication difficult. In this regards, the email system was proposed as the solution to the problem. The most important part is the process of registration which used to take a lot of time due to its complex nature, such was simplified. Further, the outpatient was not being focused upon, as inpatient was being prioritized more over to outpatient regardless of the condition of the patients. To ensure further patient satisfaction, he will be communicated and briefed about the time the tests will start and details related to it. In case, he is late then he can be traced through the maintenance of atrium logs that ensured that his delay shall not in any way impact other patients as well as himself, if possible. Moreover, specialized staff who will be a technologist will be hired for each modality whose only focus will be dealing with the outpatients, who will also ensure that the inpatients shall not be given priority over outpatients except where justified. Lastly, this process will be inculcated as a part of vision of the hospital to ensure its long term sustainability. Opinion The pay for performance culture is based upon the fact that employees shall be paid according to their performance, such culture therefore promotes merit. In the healthcare industry the measure of customer satisfaction cannot be assessed in a conventional manner, therefore instead of greeting and welcoming the customer, patient satisfaction can be maximized by keeping care of his personal needs which usually relate to the promptness of the service and the response that the patient gets. (Daft, 2000) Since, our focus in the case is outpatient, and the patient’s satisfaction is a function of the time that they have to spend waiting for their turn at different intervals, the satisfaction can be maximized by minimizing this time. This can be done by properly scheduling the appointment of the outpatients. In order to accomplish that one shall take into account the time that each activity shall take and then plan the activities accordingly. Moreover, while the patients are waiting, a member of staff shall brief them about the tests that will take place, the details can include the time that the test will take, the phases, the desired process that it involves; while in the meantime, he can also take the feedback of the patients about the hospital and the way it can be improved further. As Carl Rogers, the famous psychologist suggests that a patient has a need to be listened, this will not only keep the patient busy but in the meantime he will be able to enlighten the management by his valuable feedback. Once, the patient enters the test room, then he shall be given full attention, and his queries shall be resolved on prompt basis. (Daft, 2000) The most important point in this case is regarding the standards of getting reports. It was a surprise to find out that patients still have to wait for their results after the tests are performed. A better alternative in this regard is to bring an efficient computerized system that shall allow patients to access their reports through their email ID as well their cell phones. This can be done by allocating a username and password to each and every report that one will be able to access as per ones convenience. (Daft, 2000) Moreover, by looking at the tables one can analyze the importance of outpatients in the operations of the Methodist Willow-brook. If we explore this further than one can observe that inpatient’s share in the volume of imaging services has always remained behind Outpatient and emergency patient. Thus it is advisable to place equal importance to outpatients as well, moreover CT and X-Ray seems to be important areas where emergency patients can also be explored and another study can be conducted to address the satisfaction levels of these as well. (Daft, 2000) Conclusion Although Methodist Willow-Brook is moving in the right direction, it still needs to focus on other areas such as inpatient satisfaction and the patients who arrive due to emergencies. That said, it has devised a reasonable plan to improve upon its service to deliver a quality service to its outpatients that we hope they can extend to other types of patients as well. References Daft, R. L. (2000). Management. Orlando, Fla, Dryden Press. Read More