Get lean
After two years, Murphy wanted to take Sharp’s quality
improvement initiative to the next level, so he sought guidance
from GE, a company that’s renowned for making financial
improvements through the use of Six Sigma. Six Sigma was originally designed to enhance the performance and bottom lines of
manufacturing companies through a defect elimination process
called process mapping. It also uses the voice of the customer to
determine if a step in the manufacturing process adds value or
can be eliminated. The lean version of Six Sigma produces faster
results and is better suited for service industries.
“What we learned from GE really gave us the ability to refine
our improvement processes in a more efficient way through
the Lean Six Sigma disciplines,” Murphy says. “We trained a
number of our leaders and they became black belts in the Six
Sigma process.
“We also started looking to other top-performing hospitals
for best practices, and we learned from them. For example, we
needed to streamline our coordination of out-of-network
patients who come to one of our hospitals for treatment, usually through the emergency room. We visited another hospital
and installed their system for coordinating those patients and
their medical plan benefits, which, in turn, drove significant
improvements in a number of other systems, including faster
collection of insurance payments. We also changed our admitting process for emergency room patients and really shortened
our wait times. Of course, shorter wait times not only improve
patient satisfaction, but our staff feels better about the service
they’re delivering and medical outcomes improve. So just making that one change positively impacts almost all the pillars
under The Sharp Experience.”
By taking best practices from other organizations, Murphy
was able to make changes quicker.
“Looking at the best practices of other health care organizations really added velocity to the quality improvement process,
and the Lean Six Sigma methodology gave us a more defined
structure for making evaluations and changes,” Murphy says.
He isn’t certain how many quality projects an organization
can sustain at one time, but he cautions CEOs to be committed
if undertaking a major quality improvement initiative because
just one project can take as long as four months to complete.
Murphy’s theory encouraging CEOs to focus on quality and everything else will follow has paid off for Sharp. During the six-year quality improvement process, Sharp’s revenue increased $900 million
reaching $1.9 billion for fiscal 2007. The company also won the
Baldrige award in 2007.
“Quality really brings you efficiency and loyal customers,”
Murphy says. “Our overall financial performance is now above
the norm for a health care organization in this part of the
country. Our employee satisfaction is almost at 100 percent,
our patient satisfaction is averaging scores near the top quartile and employee turnover is down, averaging just 13 to 14
percent.”
Perhaps part of the Baldrige award criteria should include
the phrase: Those without perseverance need not inquire
because Sharp HealthCare applied two times for the Baldrige
award before winning last year.
“CEOs really have to be committed before deciding to engage
in a major quality initiative because it’s a lengthy process,”
Murphy says. “But I think it really gives the organization direction because everyone knows where you’re going, and if you’re
committed to process improvement, it will force you to look at
data and make changes in your organization. The journey
toward quality really never ends, and the awards are something you achieve as an organization because it takes a collective effort. Be sure and celebrate your successes along the way.
It will keep all your employees engaged in the journey.”
HOW TO REACH: Sharp HealthCare, www.sharp.com