By Implementing Kaizen Strategies Hospital Addressed Access Issues

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Hospital Takes Patient-Centric Approach to Addressing Access Issues

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Client: A leading international medical center with locations in three countries
Industry: Healthcare
Service: Kaizen

Challenge:

High referral rate lead to the inability to see enough patients in a timely manner
Growing patient access concerns

Solutions:

Narrowed the scope to a single patient-centric experience
Sigma Kaizen Breakthrough events on end-to-end focus from scheduling through the provision of care

Results:

Ability to schedule patients at any open location
One common scheduling process instead of four different approaches
Pre-Procedure patients instruction were reduced from 7 to 2
Same day cancellations were reduced from 13% to 8%

Due to the growing national awareness of colorectal cancer, and the ability of colonoscopies to effectively identify and potentially prevent cancer growth, the hospital chose to focus on screening colonoscopies for the pilot scope.

Guidon Performance Solutions worked with the hospital and area facilities to document the patient experience using three value stream maps from referral, to appointment scheduling, to procedure preparation, to the procedure itself, and the resulting report to the primary care physician.

The purpose of mapping the experience is to see the entire episode from a patient perspective. This approach allows all involved to thoroughly appreciate the current situation and assist in defining a transformational improvement approach.

Below are some of the key challenges that the team pursued during the pilot:

Patient’s wait for an appointment ranged from 9 to 142 days
Patients choosing alternate providers in the area because of the excessive wait
Inability to schedule patients into other open location due to ”locked” schedules (If a patient called one location, that locations could not schedule the patient elsewhere within the health system – other location schedules were “locked”)
Multiple instructions (7) amongst just five locations on how to prepare for a colonoscopy
Limited sharing of resources in the actual procedure area of the main hospital location - Two hospital divisions maintained separate procedure rooms and staff – a hindrance to the best patient experience and operational efficiency

Sigma Kaizen Breakthrough events were leveraged as a collaborative approach to re-engineering or designing a new process that streamlines the patient experience via applying Lean and Six Sigma principles. The critical element in this process is that the team closest to the day-to-day work has a common set of tools and implement solutions during the course of an active improvement week.

Because of the extensive up-front understanding of the patient experience, the hospital was able to achieve transformation within their pilot of five locations with just two Sigma Kaizen Breakthrough events. Here are those results:

Ability to schedule patients at any open location - Offered a first available appointment in 1-10 days versus up to 142 days before
Common scheduling process - One rather than four
Pre-Procedure patient instructions are reduced from 7 versions down to 2
Same-day cancellations are reduced from 13% to 8%
The hospital realized $800K in incremental net revenue due to reduced cancellations, fewer lost referrals of patients to other facilities, and better use of schedulers, nurses, physician, and procedure room resources

The pilot was a great success and is being expanded to include additional sites and other services across the Health System.