Expert Advice for Improving Hospital Operations

Hospital clinicians are trained to be healthcare professionals, not efficiency experts. Expecting them to become efficiency experts overnight by attending classes on Six Sigma or Lean transformation is tantamount to asking real efficiency experts to take 40 hours of medical classes to become practicing doctors.

 

Six Sigma and Lean may look simple at the conceptual level, but transforming a run-of-the-mill hospital operation into a world-class operation requires not only in-depth understanding of strategy, people, culture, organization, processes, statistics, and information technology, but also large blocks of time that most clinicians don't have to spare.

 

Yes, it may appear to be more cost effective to have those in-house Black Belts and attendant green belts, but the reality is that those people already have full time jobs. Asking them to take on another full time job – and operational improvement can be a full time job for the less skilled – takes away from the very efficiency the hospital is seeking to attain.

 

Who wants their doctor, nurse, or other healthcare practitioner focusing on how to make hospital operations work better when they should be attending to a patient's care?

 

Put simply, why would anyone go to a local engineering firm for an important surgery? The same goes for hospitals. If they want treatment for what ails their operations, why would they expect their medical personnel to be able to administer it?