TAG:
Six Sigma
Six Sigma, like Lean, is used to improve the quality and efficiency of operational processes. During the past decade, these process improvement techniques increasingly have been applied outside of the manufacturing sector, for example, in healthcare.
While Lean focuses on identifying ways to streamline processes and reduce waste, Six Sigma aims predominantly to make processes, such as those used in clinical laboratories and pathology group labs, more uniform and precise through the application of statistical methods.
Along with Lean, this process improvement technique has become popular with labs as a way to streamline laboratory processes, reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve quality in a time when labs are increasingly pressured by downward price trends for lab tests. At the same time, labs are able to increase value offered to “customers,” that is, patients.
The principles of a Six Sigma-based system were originally developed by Bill Smith of Motorola in 1986 as a way of eliminating defects in manufacturing, where a defect is understood to be a product or process that fails to meet customers’ expectations and requirements. The name refers to a quality level defined as the near-perfect defect rate of 3.4 defects per million opportunities. As a process improvement strategy, it gained much attention through its association with General Electric and its former CEO Jack Welsh.
Six Sigma also involves the training and certification of designated process specialists (called black belts, green belts, or other similar titles) within organizations to help guide Six Sigma improvement efforts. Other distinctive features include the expectation that process quality improvements be translated into financial metrics to assess value and the active involvement of top management in all initiatives.
Six Sigma is often combined with Lean management techniques to produce a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste (Lean) as well as defects, overproduction, waiting, non-utilized talent, transportation, inventory, motion and extra-processing (Six Sigma).
hc1, Visiun, and Viewics: Analytics Market Evolves
CEO SUMMARY: To understand any development in the marketplace, it is best to follow the money. That Roche, Quest Diagnostics, and LabCorp spent money either to purchase or partner with a lab analytics company in the past 36 months indicates that these enterprises believe acquiring or …
To Add Value, Focus on Patient Care
FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, and particularly since Congress passed the Patient Access to Medicare Act in 2014, clinical labs have focused on controlling costs, as they should. After all, PAMA calls …
Labs Begin Applying Lean to Cut Costs, Add Value
CEO SUMMARY: In more than 40 presentations by 55 speakers, two big themes dominated the 11th annual Lab Quality Confab in New Orleans last week. One theme is the urgent need to cut clinical laboratory costs. The second theme is the need for both clinical labs and anatomic pathology groups…
August 7, 2017 Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News
PAML of Spokane, Washington, was the subject of an unusual public disclosure recently made by Laboratory Corporation of America. The lab company sent a statement to the Spokane Journal of Business stating its plans to make PAML “its primary lab site in the western…
New Business Models for Pathology, Clinical Labs
EXPERTS OFTEN PROCLAIM THAT THE U.S. HEALTHCARE SYSTEM is slow to change and slow to adopt the management approaches, operational innovations, and new technologies that other industries use. One example is adoption of the quality management techniques that W. Edwards Deming and the Japanese develope…
ARUP Laboratories Earns CAP’s ISO 15189 Accreditation
CEO SUMMARY: Being accredited to this internationally recognized standard for quality and competence communicates to clients and prospective clients that one of the nation’s largest clinical labs is committed to the highest standards of quality. Clients already knew about that commitmen…
Marshfield Clinic Lab Tackles Phlebotomy Workflow Redesign
CEO SUMMARY: Before a redesign of phlebotomy workflow at Marshfield Clinic, patients might wait as long as an hour, particularly before noon when phlebotomists would see 75% of each day’s patients. After the redesign, the number of draw sites was reduced from five to two while hand…
Henry Ford Health System Laboratory Division Combines Lean with ISO 15189
CEO SUMMARY: As healthcare transitions away from fee-for-service payment and adopts new models of reimbursement, every clinical lab will need to deliver more value with its lab testing services. At Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, the laboratory division has blazed a path of improving…
Henry Ford Health System Labs Show How Lean Methodology in Healthcare Increases Revenues
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Here’s a major accomplishment by the lab division of a nationally-recognized health system that has gone unreported until this DARK REPORT intelligence briefing. This article explains how using the quality management system of ISO 15189 and the Lean methodology in …
Benchmarking with the Best To Be a World Class Laboratory
CEO SUMMARY: This fourth installment of this special series about the laboratory value pyramid introduces “Level Four: Use Benchmarks to Achieve Best-in-Class.” This is the highest level of the four level pyramid. When a lab organization performs at this level, it will be deliver…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXVIII, No. 10 – July 26, 2021
In the past 24 to 36 months, some labs have quietly begun using AI-powered applications that are being used to improve operational work processes, to streamline coding/billing/collections, and for analyzing digital pathology images. Also, genetic tests are growing in number and complexity, making it ever harder for labs to get paid.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
Lab leaders rely on THE DARK REPORT for actionable intelligence on important developments in the business of laboratory testing. Maximize the money you make-and the money you keep! Best of all, it is released every three weeks!
Sign up for TDR Insider
Join the Dark Intelligence Group FREE and get TDR Insider FREE!
Never miss a single update on the issues that matter to you and your business.
Copyright 2020 © The Dark Report. All rights reserved.
The Dark Report • 21806 Briarcliff Dr • Spicewood, TX 78669
Phone: 512-264-7103 • Toll Free Number: 800-560-6363
Email: customerservice@darkintelligencegroup.com