Lean Six Sigma for the healthcare enterprise

"Preface The purpose of this book is to provide an enterprise Lean Six Sigma methodology to enable alignment and optimization of processes across the entire organization. Healthcare has finally embraced Lean Six Sigma tools, even though it has been much later than many industries; there is great value and advantage to applying these tools and methods in healthcare. Healthcare is struggling with shrinking revenues and trying to control costs; what better environment could there be to apply Lean Six Sigma. In the first chapter we provide a description of the Strategic Business Process Architecture methodology that can enable enterprise-wide improvement. In Chapter 2, we provide a description of the Lean Six Sigma methodology that can guide our process improvement projects. In Chapter 3 we provide an application of Lean Six Sigma that successfully reduced the patient length of stay and door to doctor time in a hospital's emergency department. In Chapters 4 and 5 we provide an application of Lean Six Sigma and 5S in an operating room. In Chapter 6 we provide several more applications of the 5S Lean organizational tool. In Chapter 7 we provide an application of how Lean Six Sigma was us