Engineer Cindy Spangler compares canyoneering and surgery and identifies a common thread: the need for high-reliability processes. She describes how surgical time-out, a quick huddle to debrief before surgery, can serve as a useful model for reducing the risk of harm in canyoneering.
Using improvement methodology to solve one piece of America’s opioid epidemic. Dr. Sean Stokes and team used the practice of scoping to focus on one population and one procedure to achieve manageable, measurable improvement.
It’s part 2 of 4 in our series on process mapping. This post is about the reasons to build a process map. They’re inexpensive and so very often bear fruit for your effort.
It’s the third consecutive post in the Dojo’s summer of process mapping. Today I discuss 4 common facilitation issues LSS practitioners can avoid prior to, and during a mapping effort.
Improving value in health care means tackling long-standing problems. These problems have seemingly simple solutions, but just won’t stay fixed. Fixing the old problems of health care requires new problem solving skills. Nurse manager Jamie D’Ausilio used University of Utah Health’s value improvement methodology to confront one of the most common management challenges—unnecessary overtime. Using concepts from lean and six sigma, D’Ausilio identified waste, prioritized root causes, and engaged her team to design interventions to create new workflow design.
When a mistake happens, we promise we will never let it happen again. The problem is that a personal vow doesn’t change the way the system operates. Value engineers Steve Johnson, Cindy Spangler and Will McNett look at common personal incident—backing into the lamppost in your own front yard—as a lens for eliminating risk.
Just under 40,000 pieces of physical equipment keep our hospital system humming—everything from hospital beds to air chillers. Casey Chandler manages the team that takes care of all 40,000 items. Here, he details the tools that keep us safe.
Medical errors are a leading cause of death in the United States. What can we do to ensure our patients aren’t harmed while in our care? Former Chief Medical Quality Officer Bob Pendleton reflects on a simple concept to begin the conversation.
Healthcare isn’t the only industry experiencing whiplash-inducing change. Think about the significant change in the way we travel. We used to hear about a place or a particular hotel from a travel agent or friend, or gasp—the phone book. Today, the number of sites offering advice, recommendations and resources is astounding. In this post, we’re highlighting a few tried and true resources that leverage big data to make travel easier.
What is the strongest predictor of an effective solution? It’s not the size of the committee or the length of the brainstorming session. The best predictor of successful solutions is how well the problem is understood. Investing time in defining, investigating and analyzing the problem can lead to transformative solutions.
Improving value in healthcare means redesigning care to meet patients’ needs. We must push ourselves beyond patient satisfaction surveys to reduce uncertainty, complexity, and confusion in the delivery of care. Matthew Stein, MD, and the Breast Imaging team unflinchingly faced a source of uncertainty for patients: waiting for mammogram results.
Translating strategic priorities into everyday execution across a large, complex enterprise might seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Our Operational Plan is a blueprint that combines processes, tools, knowledge, and skills to deliver on these priorities.
