TO ADVANCE FROM HEALTHCARE QUALITY TO HEALTHCARE EXCELLENCE

Abstract

The US Healthcare Industry continues to fail to translate knowledge into practice, and fails to capably apply new technology safely and appropriately. A better understanding of process management excellence will help healthcare leaders successfully ensure that their operational investments are congruently moving their healthcare businesses toward safer and more cost effective high performance outcomes.

Health Care's Current Quality

In November 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) confirmed that hospitals were killing up to 98,000 patients annually due to medical errors. By August 2002, US hospitals were recorded to be killing over 144,000 patients annually. How much worse is it now?

Healthcare accreditation, without process management excellence, is not only failing to effectively prevent unsafe patient treatment outcomes, but does nothing to help hospitals solve their continuing inability to manage costs and sustain healthcare stakeholder trust and confidence. With over 48% of America's hospitals operating in the "red," and with a worsening caregiver staffing shortage existing across Health Care's clinical specialties, it would seem that accreditation's only real advantage for hospitals, as a stand-alone third-party review process, is to validate their CFR 42 compliance.

From Healthcare Quality to Excellence

In an effort to improve patient safety and hospital business performance, and advance from a culture of blame to a culture where providers and consumers can grow and thrive, the IOM reported that healthcare stakeholders must collaboratively build a healthcare system with far better process capability than is currently being demonstrated today. The US Healthcare Industry will only achieve outcomes excellence by sustaining a healthcare delivery system that effectively manages.

Healthcare excellence can only be achieved when the organization conscientiously commits to augmenting accreditation with process management. It is recommended to accomplish this by:

• Using ISO 9000 as the manage system framework to process manage the Strategy Map and Balanced Score Card across the management system's processes; and
• Using a Strategy Map and Balanced Score Card to focus on customer satisfaction by planning and measuring outcomes across the management system's processes, and when failing to achieve planned outcomes, apply improvement measures.

Process Outcomes Excellence

Judiciously process improve selected management system processes by:

• Using Six Sigma to reduce variation and achieve break-through events within specific patient-oriented and/or administrative processes;
• Using Lean Transformation to identify and eliminate waste in order to maximize the value stream to healthcare stakeholders; and
• Using Human Factors Science to focus on outcomes reliability in knowledge-intensive high-risk patient-oriented processes.

From Process to System Outcomes Excellence

Every business, especially Health Care's business, should pursue best practices. To do otherwise is tantamount to programming your business for Baldrige's outcomes excellence.

Summarized Case Study

A hospital case study's outcomes excellence will be presented as objective evidence of successful implementation of the aforementioned management practices.

Reality Check and Questions

More than ever before, America's healthcare leaders must understand that there are alternative solutions to solve Health Care's problems.

United We Stand!

Bio

Dr. Michael Crago brings almost 30 years of international leadership expertise to America's healthcare process improvement solutions. As TÜV America's Corporate Director for Health & Human Services, Mike is both a certified Quality Management Systems (QMS) Lead Assessor and Six Sigma Champion. His professional background includes managing numerous healthcare organizations, healthcare delivery systems, and healthcare and multi-functional networks; serving as a healthcare operations expert in the US, Central America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; and now working as a healthcare process management excellence expert and healthcare cultural change agent with Siemens Medical Solutions. Dr. Crago has authored an international research study and was a contributing author for a book; continues to write articles and papers in leading international publications; and regularly speaks at international quality conferences on how to establish a sustainable seamless and transparent organizational business management system for excellence.