To prepare for this Assignment: Read the Pediatric Hospital in Tough Market Pegs Growth to Lean Process Improvement case study by Tonya Vinas, located in the Learning Resources
To prepare for this Assignment:
Read the Pediatric Hospital in Tough Market Pegs
Growth to Lean Process Improvement case study by Tonya Vinas, located in the Learning Resources. Review the key metrics and current state of the organization before the interventions were conducted.
The Assignment:
In a 6- to 7-page report to the board of directors (not including title page or references):
LEAN MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY SERIES: PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL INTOUGH MARKET PEGS GROWTH TO LEAN PROCESS IMPROVEMENTVinas, Tonya6/2/2011Lean managementcase study seriesPediatric Hospital in Tough Market Pegs Growth to LeanProcessImprovementBy Tonya VinasAkron Children’s Hospital (ACH), a regional pediatric care system headquartered inNortheast Ohio, could be compared with David, the young lad who courageously bringsdown a giant in a classic Old Testament tale.In this story, though, David battles two giants.Akron is about 35 miles south of Cleveland, where two nationally ranked pediatrichospitals draw families from around the world who need specialized care for theirchildren’s complex medical problems. Parents are attracted to the hospitals’international reputations for being among the best: The Cleveland Clinic’s Children’sHospital and University Hospital’s Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital are knownfor breakthrough research, life-saving surgeries and treatments, and other medicalinnovations. They also aggressively recruit gifted doctors, leading scientists, and othermedical experts at the top of their professions.But ACH, which certainly has a stellar regional reputation, is taking a unique weaponinto the field as it battles for a bigger slice of the state’s pediatric care market. While thetwo Cleveland hospitals have continuous-improvement programs, neither has madecontinuous improvement a strategic imperative across its entire enterprise as ACH has.The hospital’s Center for Operations Excellence (COE) is the engine that propels allemployees and functions toward the growth goals set by executives and boardmembers inhoshin kanri(strategy deployment) planning. Leaders are confident that theCOE and its leansix sigma-focused training and project leadership give ACH enoughcompetitive advantage to succeed, even in the same geographic market as twohealthcare giants.ACH’s expansion plan includes increasing the number of patients served bothgeographically and within certain sub-specialties; becoming the No. 1 choice for parentsand referring physicians through quality achievements and availability of services;improving on infrastructure, quality, and clinical programs; and becoming the primarysite for pediatric medical research in Northeast Ohio.
Already, the three-year-old COE has been widely embraced and highly effective.Projects have saved ACH millions of dollars, increased utilization of expensive assets,and reduced wait times and processing for patients and their families. The short-termgains are important, said Doug Dulin, the COE’s senior director, but the learning andcommitment that each project builds internally are more crucial.“What it comes down to is that we have to create a competitive advantage,” said Dulin,who learned theToyota Production Systemat Aoyama Seisakusho, a Tier One supplierto Toyota Motor Manufacturing. “So how can we transfer what we’ve already done intoevery segment of the hospital? That’s how the Center for Operations Excellence fits in.This is a long-term journey.”Akron Children’s Hospital at a GlanceLargest pediatric healthcare system in northeast Ohio.Operating two freestanding pediatric hospitals and offering services at nearly 80locations.Pediatric specialties draw half a million patients annually, including children, teens,and adults from all 50 states and around the world.Level-Loading Schedule Improves Quality, Access, and RevenuesIn addition to the challenge of having two highly regarded competitors in the market,ACH must do much more with much less. It doesn’t receive the numerous large grantsand donations that the others do; and since all of the hospital’s patients are children, itcan’t rely on Medicare reimbursements. Also, both the Clinic and UH are closely alignedwith Case Western University Medical School in Cleveland, and so have access to moreintellectual property, research programs, emerging technologies, and other assets thanACH has.The hospital system’s smaller and less complexoperation, however, seems to havebeen an advantage for quickly absorbing the lean culture. Evidence of how open alllevels of the organization have been to lean is the speed with which a large number ofemployees — including doctors — have come together to identify problems, find theroot causes, and then agree on countermeasures.“There’s something about the culture at Children’s that allowed this to be very effective,very quickly,” said Board Member Bill Hopkins. “They were just primed for this. It speaksvolumes about the commitment from everybody — the leadership, staff doctors,nurses.”For example, MRI scheduling was one of the first areas the COE addressed because ithad potential for significant and fast improvement, and because the hospital had notbeen able to effectively utilize a second MRI machine it had purchased. The mostapparent barrier was a bottleneck in scheduling.
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