Lean six sigma in health care: improving utilization and reducing waste

Lamia Almorsy, Mohamed Khalifa*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference proceeding contributionpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Healthcare costs have been increasing worldwide mainly due to over utilization of resources. The savings potentially achievable from systematic, comprehensive, and cooperative reduction in waste are far higher than from more direct and blunter cuts in care and coverage. At King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center inappropriate and over utilization of the glucose test strips used for whole blood glucose determination using glucometers was observed. The hospital implemented a project to improve its utilization. Using the Six Sigma DMAIC approach (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control), an efficient practice was put in place including updating the related internal policies and procedures and the proper implementation of an effective users' training and competency check off program. That resulted in decreasing the unnecessary Quality Control (QC) runs from 13% to 4%, decreasing the failed QC runs from 14% to 7%, lowering the QC to patient testing ratio from 24/76 to 19/81.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationUnifying the applications and foundations of biomedical and health informatics
EditorsJohn Mantas, Arie Hasman, Parisis Gallos, Aikaterini Kolokathi, Mowafa S. Househ
Place of PublicationAmsterdam ; Berlin ; Washington, DC
PublisherIOS Press
Pages194-197
Number of pages4
Volume226
ISBN (Electronic)9781614996637
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event14th International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare, ICIMTH 2016 - Athens, Greece
Duration: 1 Jul 20163 Jul 2016

Publication series

NameStudies in Health Technology and Informatics
Volume226
ISSN (Print)0926-9630
ISSN (Electronic)1879-8365

Other

Other14th International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare, ICIMTH 2016
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityAthens
Period1/07/163/07/16

Keywords

  • Healthcare
  • Hospitals
  • Improving Utilization
  • Reducing Waste

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