Has the time come for Lean Six Sigma to be as pervasive in healthcare as X-ray machines?
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Medicine has long focused on treating an individual . The relationship between doctor and patient is sacrosanct and there can be huge variations in individual patients: how they respond to treatment, their overall level of health, genetics and so on.
And yet, according to Grace Duffy, a consultant who specializes in organizational and process improvement within the healthcare sector, there is a massive shift underway towards looking at how the community as a whole can both treat and prevent health issues.
"We’re seeing a cultural shift from the individual healthcare and treatment of the patient to a community health awareness, where we’re going more toward prevention than we are toward treatment of individual clinical incidents," she explains.
In this PEX Network interview, Duffy argues that combining medical and community expertise with management and quality disciplines like Lean and Six Sigma, can help deliver better patient outcomes and value for money.
