In more than a decade, Missouri Enterprise has helped 1000’s of organizations succeed with tools and techniques including Lean Enterprise, Six Sigma and Quality Management.

We carefully evaluated these manufacturing-based methods and created a continuous improvement program that applies the best of them to healthcare.

We tested this program with representatives from Missouri’s leading healthcare organizations.

Powerful Change Management to Nurture Continuous Improvement

This proven program enables you to identify and remove activities that don’t add value to the services you provide patients. You will be able to improve administrative processes, service delivery, outcomes, and patient and staff satisfaction, while reducing costs and improving patient flow.

It helps you fill the gap between having a Continuous Improvement program and managing it effectively.

The key principles of our approach for healthcare come from a combination of Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma, two powerful and complementary business management systems.

Both systems are tried and true and effective for small, medium and large organizations.

Lean for Healthcare

Lean Enterprise is a change management system and a set of principles that enable institutions like yours to identify activities that do not add value to their products or services and to remove or minimize them.

The most fundamental Lean Enterprise Principles are:

• Visual Workplace: A workplace using simple visuals that provide an immediate

   understanding of the present status show the correct actions to take.

• Workplace Organization/5S: A method of creating an organized, clean and efficient

   workplace that improves safety, quality and efficiency. The five S’s are sort, set in

   order, shine, standardize and sustain.

• Standard Work: An agreed upon procedure that combines people, materials and

   equipment to best maintain safety, quality, efficiency and predictability.

Others include:

• Value Stream Mapping: A means of graphically representing the value-added and

   non-value-added activities (including the flow of both material and information) in a

   service.  A future state map is a guide to improving your processes and removing

   non-value-added activities.

• Pull: A system based on customer demand, that controls inventory amount and

   movement; sanctions actions; and provides visual controls.

• Point of Use Storage: Keeping an inventory of supplies and equipment near where

   they are used.

• Quick Turnover Time: Decreasing the time necessary between the moment you

   complete the last work in a room or use of equipment and the moment the first

   new work in the room or on the equipment begins.

• Layout: Grouping equipment or processes, connected by a work sequence, in a

   pattern that supports efficient movement.

Six Sigma for Healthcare

Six Sigma is a systematic, scientific, data-driven problem solving process you can use to find root causes for process variances and significantly reduce those variances.

Six Sigma follows the DMAIC process, which means:

• Define includes selecting and proposing projects, building a team, creating a sense of

   urgency and clarifying customer needs and your processes.

• Measure means selecting the key indicator of project success, collecting and

   displaying the necessary data and calculating sigma (a measure of variation).

• In Analyzing, many possible causes are identified, statistical calculations are made to

   determine the root cause and expected results and savings are quantified.

• Improve includes using both technical and cultural tools to identify, test, refine

   and follow a plan of action with effective solutions.

• Control means developing and deploying systems to make sure that solutions remain

   effective.