Lean Healthcare is written for healthcare leaders, managers, physicians, and professionals that are looking for ways to improve access, quality, safety, and service while maintaining or reducing costs. The book is packed with real life examples (including examples for hospitals, medical offices, pharmacies, imaging, and more) which can help the reader more easily understand how the lean principles developed for manufacturing can be applied in the healthcare setting. In this book you will learn step-by-step:1. What constitutes "waste" or "MUDA"2. How "waste" affects the costs and quality of healthcare 3. How you can identify potential "waste" or "MUDA" in your department or organization 4. How you can determine the cause(s) of any observed "waste" 5. What actions you can take to eliminate "waste" to reduce costs and/or improve quality or service 6. What actions you can take to prevent "waste" 7. How you can successfully implement changes needed to eliminate "waste". The book is divided into 6 chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of Lean along with a description of the 8 "wastes" and how they are impacting the healthcare system as a whole. This chapter also introduces the "Assess, Diagnose, Treat, and Prevent" (ADTP) model and explains how it can be used to implement Lean in your organization (note: the tools, techniques, and strategies discussed in the remaining chapters can be used with any performance improvement model and not just the ADTP model). The second chapter discusses different approaches (i.e., walking the "gemba", value stream mapping, etc.) that can be used to assess whether there is "waste" or "MUDA" within your department or organization. The third chapter discusses the most common tools and approaches that can be used to identify or "diagnose" the cause(s) of any waste or MUDA observed in your organization or department (i.e., the 5 WHYs, the Cause/Effect diagram, etc.) along with examples from healthcare showing how these tools can be used to determine or "diagnose" the cause(s) of waste you may observe in your department. The fourth chapter discusses the different strategies and approaches that you can use to "treat" or eliminate each of the 8 types of "waste". Approaches such as poka-yoke, kanban, load leveling, 5s, and more are discussed in detail along with examples showing how each of the approaches can be applied in a number of different healthcare settings (i.e., hospital, medical office, pharmacy, etc.) for treating" or eliminating "waste". The fifth chapter discusses the most common tools and approaches that can be used to "prevent" waste (i.e., FMEA, poka-yoke, simulation) along with examples from healthcare showing how each tool can be used to help "prevent" waste. The sixth chapter offers a number of strategies for leading the change effort needed to eliminate waste and improve access, quality, safety, affordability, and service. About the author: Scott has had over 35 years of management and leadership experience in healthcare. He began his career as a management engineer where he learned and mastered the principles of lean six sigma. Scott then served for several years as Director of Finance before becoming Assistant Medical Center Administrator. Over the years Scott had the opportunity to lead the surgical and rehab service line, the primary care and medical subspecialty service line, and the business and support services service line where he applied the principles of lean six sigma daily. During his 35 years of experience Scott saved over 20 million dollars while improving access, quality, affordability, safety, and service through the use of the tools and techniques described in his book "Applying Lean Six Sigma in the Healthcare Setting". Scott was also part of the adjunct faculty of a major university where he taught Healthcare Finance and Accounting to graduate and undergraduate students.
