The sustainable improvement of patient flow in an emergency treatment centre using Lean

International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage

Volumn 4, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 289-304

  Dicks, Eric ^a   Anguelov, Zlatko ^a   Bott, Patricia ^a   Nugent, Andrew ^a   Walz, David ^a   Singh, Sabi ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF IOWA   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF IOWA HOSPITALS AND CLINICS   (United States)

Author keywords

Emergency department; Lean; Patient flow; Patient satisfaction; Quality of care; Sustainable improvement

Indexed keywords

EID: 57749203102     PISSN: 14792494     EISSN: 14792753     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1504/IJSSCA.2008.021841     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. Ben-Tovim, D.I., Bassham, J.E., Bolsh, D., Martin, M.A., Dougherty, M. and Szwarcbord, M. (2007) 'Lean thinking across a hospital: Redesigning care at the Flinders Medical Centre', Aust Health Rev, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp.10-15.
2. Berwick, D.M. (1989) 'Continuous improvement as an ideal in health care', N Engl J Med, Vol. 320, No. 1, pp.53-56.
3. Bush, S.H., Lao, M.R., Simmons, K.L., Goode, J.H., Cunningham, S.A. and Calhoun, B.C. (2007) 'Patient access and clinical efficiency improvement in a resident hospital-based women's Medicine Center Clinic', Am J Manag Care, Vol. 13, December, pp.686-690.
4. Carrigan, M.D. and Kujawa, D. (2006) 'Six Sigma in health care management and strategy', Health Care Manager, Vol. 2, pp.133-141.
5. Committee on the Future of Emergency Care in the United States. Health System Board on Health Care Services. Institute of Medicine (2007) Hospital-Based Emergency Care at the Breaking Point, Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
6. Dickson, E., Singh, S., Cheung, D.S., Wyatt, C.C. and Nugent, A.S. (2008) 'Application of lean manufacturing techniques in the emergency department', J Emerg Med, in press.
7. Furman, C. and Caplan, R. (2007) 'Applying the Toyota production system: using a patient safety alert system to reduce error', The Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Patient Safety, Vol. 33, No. 7, pp.376-386.
8. Gelrud, J., Burroughs, H. and Koterwas, J. (2008) 'Emergency care center turnaround time - an improvement story', J for Healthcare Quality, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp.31-37.
9. IHI Innovation Series White Paper (2005) 'Going lean in health care', Cambridge, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement, www.IHI.org.
10. Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) (2003) Optimizing Patient Flow: Moving Patients Smoothly Through Acute Care Setting, Boston: IHI.
11. Jensen, K., Mayer, T.A., Welsh, S.J. and Haraden, C. (2007) Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow, Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.
12. Jimmerson, C., Weber, D. and Sobek, D.K. (2005) 'Reducing waste and errors: Piloting lean principles at intermountain healthcare', The Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Patient Safety, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp.249-257.
13. Kelly, A.M., Bryant, M., Cox, L. and Jolley, D. (2007) 'Improving emergency department efficiency by patient streaming to outcome-based teams', Aust Health Rev, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp.16-21.
14. Ohno, T. (1988) Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, 1st ed., Portland, OR: Productivity Press.
15. Raab, S.S., Grzybicki, D.M., Sudilovsky, D., Balassanian, R., Janovsky, J.E. and Vrbin, C.M. (2006) 'Effectiveness of Toyota process redesign in reducing thyroid gland fine-needle aspiration error', Am J Clin Pathol, Vol. 126, pp.585-592.
16. Rother, M. and Shook, J. (1998) Learning to See, Spiral edition, Brookline, MA: The Lean Enterprise Institute, Version 1.2.
17. Shannon, R.P., Frndak, D., Grunden, N., Lloyd, J.C., Herbert, C., Patel, B., Cummins, D., Shannon, A.H., O'Neill, P.H. and Spear, S.J. (2006) 'Using real-time problem solving to eliminate central line infections', The Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Patient Safety, Vol. 32, No. 9, pp.479-487.
18. Varkey, P., Reller, M.K. and Resar, R.K. (2007) 'Basics of quality improvement in health care', Mayo Clin Proc, Vol. 62, No. 6, pp.735-739.