Our
main office is in Orlando, Florida. You
can fill out our
contact form or reach us at:
HPK Group, LLC
PO Box 1974
Windermere, Florida 34786-1974
Phone (407) 808-4785
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HPK Group - Lean Healthcare Consultants
 What is Lean Healthcare ?
For years manufacturers have been perfecting Lean Manufacturing techniques to improve productivity, eliminate waste, improve the quality of their products, and lower manufacturing costs. Now these techniques are available to hospitals in the form of Lean Healthcare. The basic principles of Lean Manufacturing and Lean Healthcare are:
 Add only value (eliminate waste or muda). Concentrate on people who perform value-added activities.
Respond to customer demand (pull system).
Optimize across the organization.
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What does manufacturing technology have to do with my hospital?
To understand the use of a methodology in two seemingly unrelated industries, it is helpful to review the definition of a process. A process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined outcome. When you view the goal as improving the process, the actual industry becomes less important. To get a feel for how this process improvement methodology can benefit your hospital, please refer to the chart below:
Lean Manufacturing / Lean Healthcare Comparison
The 7 Types of Waste "Muda" |
Manufacturing Examples |
Healthcare Examples |
| Overproduction |
Producing product to stock based on sales forecasts, economic order quantity requirements, producing in batches, etc. |
Blood draws done early to accommodate lab equipment and personnel, Testing & Treatment done to balance workload for hospital staff. |
| Waiting |
Batches of parts, subassemblies, etc. awaiting further processing - Work-In-Process (WIP) |
Patients awaiting bed assignments, Inpatients waiting in Emergency Dept., Patients waiting for Testing & Treatment, Patient awaiting discharge, Physicians awaiting Patient lab test results. |
| Transportation |
Excessive travel of parts, product, etc. |
Excessive travel required for samples & specimens to be analyzed, excessive transporting of patients for testing & treatment. |
| Overprocessing |
Over polishing, tolerances too tight, poor tool and product design. |
Multiple bed moves, retesting, excessive paperwork. |
| Inventories |
High WIP and Finished Goods inventories. |
Patients awaiting bed assignments, lab samples and specimens batched for analysis, dictation ready for transcription, lab results awaiting distribution. |
| Movement |
Looking for parts, tools, prints, help, variation in process steps, sharing of tools and equipment, etc. |
Looking for patients, missing meds, missing charts, variation in procedures, sharing of equipment, etc. |
| Defects |
Product that needs to be scrapped, reworked, or reconditioned. |
Resticks, redraws, medication errors, wrong patient, wrong procedure, wrong side surgery, poor clinical outcomes. |
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Is lean healthcare right for your hospital?
Lean healthcare is one of several process improvement methodologies that can benefit hospitals. Six Sigma and Constraint Management are also valuable techniques. We like to focus on your unique situation and then choose the
methodology
or combination of
methodologies that can best bring about your desired outcomes. The next step? Contact HPK Group lean healthcare consultants to schedule an informative consultation.
We also invite you to look through our healthcare workshops and seminars page.
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