Applying Lean Six Sigma methods to reduce length of stay in a hospital's emergency department

Abstract

Operational excellence is critical to throughput and patient flow in an emergency department. This case study applied the Lean Six Sigma DMAIC methodology to improve throughput as measured by reducing patients’ length of stay by 30% in just 3 months, and reducing the percent of patients leaving without treatment from 6.5% to .3%. The patient satisfaction, as measured by patient satisfaction surveys, had increased by 24% to 89.9%. This allowed the ED to achieve the top 1% level of hospitals nationally. This case study demonstrates the value of engaging healthcare providers in improving their processes through application of Lean Six Sigma methods.

Keywords:

• DMAIC emergency departments
• emergency services
• Lean Six Sigma
• nonparametric methods
• process improvement
• quality-management systems
• Six Sigma method

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sandra L. Furterer

Dr. Sandy Furterer is an Associate Professor at the University of Dayton, in the Department of Engineering Management, Systems and Technology. She previously was a VP of Process Transformation for a community bank in Columbus, Ohio. She also was the Enterprise Performance Excellence leader that deployed Lean Six Sigma in a hospital system in south Florida.

She received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in Quality Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 2004. She received an MBA from Xavier University, and a Bachelor and Master of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University. She has over 25 years of experience in business process and quality improvements with multiple service industries, including healthcare, retail, consulting, information systems, and financial services. She is an ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, a Certified Quality Engineer, an ASQ fellow, and a certified Master Black Belt. She is an author or coauthor of four reference textbooks on Lean Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma, and Lean Systems, including her latest book: Lean Six Sigma Case Studies in the Healthcare Enterprise by Springer publishing in 2014. She is an author or coauthor of several journal articles, and refereed conference proceedings publications on process modeling, Lean Six Sigma, process improvement, and engineering education. She has over 80 conference presentations on operational excellence, process improvement, Lean Six Sigma, business process architecture, and engineering education.