Bringing Change in Healthcare with Lean Six Sigma  

Category: Practice Management

By Diana Allen Newhouse

Lean Six Sigma is not new to the healthcare arena with regards to process improvement, but perhaps your organization has been hesitant to enlist its principals into your practice.  This article discusses why you should consider the methodologies for process improvement to bring about a higher level of performance.  According to Greg Stock, CEO of Thibodaux Regional Medical Center in Louisiana, "The idea of being able to truly transform the culture within a hospital or medical facility may sound like a daunting, if not impossible, task.  But achieving a genuine cultural transformation in healthcare could be the key to solving some of the most basic and difficult problems facing the industry today" (Six Sigma Forum, May 2002).  Thibodaux Regional adopted Six Sigma after training with GE Medical Systems.  "Too often, our evaluation of a process has been base...