Six Sigma methodologies in service and healthcare?

Lean is a familiar concept in both healthcare and services. But can one get away with Six Sigma methodologies here? And then what might these methodologies add?

Lean 2.0: Free knowledge transfer of Lean principles

In an interesting program, speakers gave their views on this. The program began with the contribution of the Lean 2.0 Foundation, whose ambition is to make access to Lean theories and philosophies accessible. So also knowledge transfer through free meetings and in interest groups.

“C “Lean management reporting at ‘s Heeren Loo Care Group

Moniek Razenberg of ‘s Heeren Loo Care Group then shared the design and results of her IT project within the organization. From the VOC (Voice of Customer), “I want to receive one complete management report, with aligned form, at a regular time and with repeatability in the process,” the project was initiated.

After thorough research among the various stakeholders as to what a management report should contain, the final result is a document that has been reduced from 8 to 4 pages in which the key figures for ‘s Heeren Loo Zorggroep are presented in a clear manner, within the house style, that is the same for all stakeholders. In the process, a reduction in lead time was achieved and customer satisfaction among stakeholders increased.

Municipality of Rijssen-Holten: With Six Sigma, the breakthrough was forced

In the Municipality of Rijssen-Holten, under the leadership of Martin Oplaat, the WABO process was taken in hand. Turnaround times were too long, requiring adjournment in a number of cases.

Through hypothesis testing, a number of issues were ruled out that could be influential, for example, peak times during vacation periods, prepared work meetings and digitally submitted applications. By creating a value stream with the individual process steps and measuring them, it was found that no time savings could be achieved in the individual process operations. So the necessary work was carried out effectively. A Minitab analysis showed that the time appeared to be correct between individual steps. This is seen as wasteful. By applying Six Sigma, the cause of the long lead time could be identified which led to the breakthrough in the project.

Lean+? Lean but with analysis of the facts….

Finally, the forum discussed whether Six Sigma is a useful tool for Services and Care. After a lively discussion, Symbol chairman Jeroen van der Weerdt concluded that Six Sigma is, after all, a serious barrier within the Care and Services industry.

Perhaps for the acceptance of the Lean Six Sigma method, it might be better to focus initially on involving employees in the change process. From this increased involvement, it can then be chosen, at a later stage of the improvement program, to also include some statistical tools in the toolbox of improvement methods.