08 Jan LEAN and Process Improvement Successes in Healthcare
SUCCESSES OF THE CLINICAL LABORATORY AT HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM
It is perfect irony that the Department of Pathology and Clinical Laboratory Medicine at the Henry Ford Health System is among the most effective Lean practitioners in the world of medical laboratory testing. That’s because LEAN techniques were developed by Toyota Motor Corporation, which itself based its LEAN management methods on its study of Henry Ford’s groundbreaking innovations at his auto manufacturing plant in Detroit. Thus, the current use of LEAN methods at the clinical laboratory at Henry Ford Health System means that these management tools have come full circle. Today, the laboratory at the hospital in Detroit that bears Ford’s name has adopted methods used in auto manufacturing to improve the lab’s processes.
As a result of introducing the Toyota Production System, the clinical laboratory at the Henry Ford Health System cut turnaround time (TAT) for results in its core lab from six to four hours.. In 2009, TAT at the Henry Ford lab was the subject of an article titled “Using Lean at Henry Ford Transforms Pathology TAT” in The Dark Report. The clinical laboratory was sending 74% of test results for specimens that arrived by 5 p.m. to referring physicians by midnight, and 99% of these results were sent to physicians by 6 a.m. the next day. By this past Spring, the clinical laboratory was processing outpatient specimens that arrived by 5 p.m. much more quickly. Results on 85% of tests were sent to referring physicians by 8 p.m. and 98% were sent to physicians by midnight, the newspaper said.
Faster turnaround time (TAT) is due in part to the elimination of wasteful procedures—a hallmark of LEAN production systems. The number of steps involved in producing a test result (i.e., from taking a patient sample to delivering the result to a physician) were slashed from 35 to 24. Also, the clinical laboratory halved the time to get results from blood drawn from outpatient clinics from six-to-10 hours to three-to-five hours. In addition to improving TAT, Zarbo and his staff cut the defect rate in the histology laboratory as well. In 2006, the lab averaged 50 such defects a day. By 2007, the rate was 30 per day, and by 2008, the rate was five per day. Using barcode technology helped the pathology laboratory cut misidentified samples by 62%, and glass slide tissue misidentifications by 95%.
Too often both the clinical laboratory and the anatomic pathology department go unrecognized, even though in many hospitals across the nation, it was the clinical laboratory that was first to adopt and successfully use LEAN techniques and process improvement methods. Thus, the accomplishments of the team at the medical laboratory of Henry Ford Health System should get full recognition—both in Detroit and across the United States. Have you introduced lean concepts to manage your bottom line?
– Rafi Benamoz, CEO, Benamoz Business Entrepreneur Solutionz, rafi@benamoz.com
No Comments