Six Sigma Project : Ibraa Essay

1. Six Sigma is a management philosophy that sets objectives, collects data and analyzes results as a way to remove wasted expenses from its processes and help reduce the number of defective products produced. Six Sigma uses quality measures to strive for near perfection by eliminating errors and variables.

Due to ineffective management systems, inefficiency is increasing, which often leads to congested emergency rooms, customer complaints, and lost revenue. Over the past seven years, Six Sigma concepts are increasingly being implemented in the healthcare industry. Despite the challenges of adopting these concepts, the healthcare industry uses them to improve services rendered quality, increase efficiency and reduce fatal human errors. Primarily because Six Sigma is based on a comprehensive approach on improving the human and transactional aspects of the process (human performance and task completion). In the case of JPS, the factors that determine quality and efficiency are the flow of information and interaction with the patients. Using the Six Sigma DMAIC process improvement approach, JPS Emergency Department should be able to streamline information flow and achieve strategic business results (p.

Six Sigma focuses on defect prevention; improving quality, cost savings, and reducing waste by helping

Six Sigma (SS) has emerged above other QI models with its innovative use of extensive data analysis and problem-solving methods to provide consistent healthcare services. SS identifies and analyzes the root cause

With its success in manufacturing and other service industries, and because of new payment models and a shift in focus to better outcomes, there is no doubt the healthcare community will embrace Six Sigma techniques as a way to stay competitive in an ever-shifting landscape. And, because the main basis of health care reform is to eliminate underperformers in an effort to redesign the healthcare delivery system toward value-based medicine, eliminating waste in every internal process becomes even more critical.

Once the team is satisfied with their data and determined that no additional analysis is needed to understanding the problem, it’s time to move on to the improve phase. The team would start collecting improvement ideas. The control phase is when the team would begin to document how they should pass the structure on to the employees who will work within the process (goLEANSIXSIGMA.com, n.d.). The Lean Six Sigma helps the healthcare industry find several basic and standardized solutions for many of their organizational and procedural issues. The Lean Six Sigma can enhance the visual management procedures and reduces the complexity and time of processes. It can also be used in various ways within the healthcare industry and enable healthcare professionals to offer sound and efficient care to the human general public (Six Sigma Online, n.d.). In healthcare organizations where the Lean Six Sigma has become a part of the overall business strategy, the leadership realized that it’s not about the training or the tools. It’s about looking at things from a new and different angle and using a reliable approach to manage and lead change. It's also about making an investment in people by equipping the staff with solid skills and empowering them to solve the problems they are face with in their daily work (Pexton,

The basic principle of improvement by the processes of Six Sigma methodology is by the reduction of diffusion. The six sigma approach aims to reduce defect levels to only a few parts per million for an organization's key products and processes. The Six Sigma philosophy is based on the fact that all processes from design, through to manufacturing and to services provided to customers, display aberrances, which may result in product errors that cost time and money. These errors are variations of processes that can be reduced by various methods in order for the real cause of the problem to be systematically identified and

A quantitative study conducted by Lifvergren, Gremyr, Hellstrom, Chakhunashvili, and Bergman (2010) analyzed the experiences and from a hospital group during a three-year period after the introduction of Six Sigma. It reports on 22 large Six Sigma improvement projects, their results and influence on other improvement activities. The study shows that 75% of the completed projects reached their goals within 18 months. The average net cost savings per completed project/year was $55,300. Overall, the results showed that Six Sigma is a useful concept when trying to improve healthcare processes. They recommend that Six Sigma should be an addition to the improvement practices used in healthcare development initiatives. It was also observed that the Six Sigma program can create much organizational pull regarding quality management and improvement efforts if teamwork is applied.

Six Sigma is a quality improvement method that is being used more frequently in healthcare. This tool was developed and used in industry since around 1980 and began to be used in healthcare in the 1990's (Powell, Rushmer, & Davies, 2009). According to Lighter (2011) "This lean process management system provides quality improvement professionals with the ability to remove non-value added work and improve process efficiency" (p. 287). The healthcare industry needs to find a way to get rid of errors. Today's society demands a lot from the healthcare providers and will not tolerate unnecessary errors, no matter how small they may seem. Six Sigma works to recognize errors as soon as they occur so

Six Sigma is a measurement based strategy for process improvement and problem reduction. It is completed through the application of the Quality Improvement project and accomplished with the use of two Six Sigma models. One model is DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control), which is designed to examine

These methodologies have led to procedure changes in response to inconsistencies identified through Six Sigma’s strategies. However, the researchers noted that sometimes changes where implemented without sufficient statistical evidence to support the change. Yet in other cases some statistical findings were over exaggerated. Therefore, they advise that care should be taken to determine the practicality of changes. This study provides the reader with enough evidence to support the use of Six Sigma in healthcare while highlighting some of the potential pitfalls of the methodology.

The most popular example of which is the LEAN thinking and the Six Sigma concept. Six Sigma approach to improve quality has been used in many organizations since its inception at Motorola Corporation in the 1980s to measure and improve product and service quality. Six Sigma mainly focuses on defects that occur in million opportunities (Jayanta K. Bandyopadhyay, 2005). Six Sigma is heavily drawing attention from both private and government hospitals and health systems seeking a better approach to achieving long-term results whether financially or in terms of health safety and quality improvement. Six Sigma has been used to address many of the most common challenges faced by healthcare industry, including safety of patients, optimization of technology, market growth, apt resource utilization and the time up to which the program performs correctly with good outcome. In some instances, it is used to focus on a specific department or procedure, and in others, it is implemented on an enterprise-wide basis to achieve a cultural transformation (Pexton, February 26, 2010).

It is astonishing how Six Sigma can be connected to any procedure nowadays; this case in regards to the utilization of Six Sigma in the surgery room is shocking. Who might have thought the procedures that could prompt to a man 's passing if performed inaccurately could be streamlined or made more productive by utilizing information? Be that as it may, it bodes well now that surgeries are turning out to be increasingly pervasive and vital to the feasibility of a portion of the biggest healing centers in the nation. This paper discusses on the possible implementation of the Six Sigma process in the diagnostic centers.

The concept of Six Sigma was developed in the early 1980’s at Motorola Corporation (Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Six Sigma can be defined as a statistical measure of the performance of a process or product (Kumi et. al., 2006). It is used as a quality control mechanism, which seeks to reduce defects or variations in a process to 3.4 per million opportunities thereby optimizing output and increasing customer satisfaction (Sambhe, 2012). Sigma is representing the standard deviation, a unit of measurement that designates the distribution or spread about the mean of a process (Six Sigma Academy, 2002). In addition, the Six Sigma uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of fact, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing improving, and reinventing business processes (Pande, P., et. al. 2000). The Six Sigma methodology uses statistical tools to identify the factors that matter most for improving the quality of processes and generating bottom-line results. The Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure,

Since 1920’s the term ‘sigma’ is used by mathematician’s measurement unit in product quality measurement. In mid-1980’s, engineers at Motorola Inc. coined the term Six Sigma which they used it informally as an in-house initiative to increase the quality for reducing the defects in the production process. Initially the engineers measured the defects in terms of thousands which gradually increased to ‘defects per million’. This prompted the use of ‘Six Sigma’ technology and idea of branding Six Sigma. A company is Six Sigma certified if it could limit its flaws up to 3.4 defects per million.