LEAN IN HEALTHCARE

THE CHALLENGE

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Our client in the home healthcare space was faced with major challenges in operating their visiting nurse program. Nurses and program coordinators were working around the clock to avoid missed visits, and racking up unprecedented amounts of overtime. System challenges and lack of training were inhibiting collaboration among nurses and coordinators. On top of that, system data and metrics were incorrect and misleading management on the causes of the problem. Everyone was feeling the burden of keeping patients cared for, and hoped that brining Lean in healthcare would improve the situation.

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RESULTS

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A kaizen team was formed to focus on two visiting nursing teams that were showing the most distress for a period of 8 weeks.

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✓ Overtime on the two visiting nursing teams decreased by 54%

✓ Travel time was reduced by 67%

✓ Novel solutions for long term staff augmentation, wages review, and skills training were identified and quick wins executed

✓ Training gaps were quantified through skills matrix implementation and training launched

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INGREDIENTS

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➢ Daily Kaizen Training - the team was first trained on structured problem-solving methods

➢ Kaizen Workshops - the team was facilitated in using their Daily Kaizen Training to take a data based and systematic approach for identifying root causes and solutions and demonstrated the power of Lean in healthcare

➢ Accurate Visual Data - a war room enabled the team to analyze and present correct data in a focused manner. Visible and accurate data helped create buy-in at various levels of the organization and with the nursing teams.