Valle Del Sol Decreased Audit Processing Time By 68% With GLSS
Florida
Healthcare
Patient Care
350%
Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement Results:
Increased audit processing throughput by over 100%
âPhysician heal thyselfâ was the operative phrase for this nonprofit healthcare organization. The Quality Management Team tackled their own overwhelming workload with Lean Six Sigma with amazing results. Lynne Emmons of Valle del Sol has a great story to tell!
Project Summary
Quality Management Revamp: Improving the audit processing throughput.
Due to the rapid growth of their organization, Lynne and her process improvement team sought to increase the work done in the amount of another person without being to be able to hire for said person.
âĶwe were growing rapidly as an organization and we had to find a way to basically get enough work done for a whole [extra] position without being able to hire [the employee].
Define Phase: Identify the Problem
After initial research, Emmons found:
- The team was currently doing about 283 different deliverablesâ ranging from audits, licensing, meeting, attendance, and trainings.
- The processes that were taking the most amount of time were audits.
- With the low threshold of staff, the team ran into situations where the deliverables went beyond the deadline
And so, if you look at the number [283 deliverables], thatâs about 30% increase there to 345, thatâs why we shop for that number. And we need to do that sooner rather than later.
Measure Phase: Quantify the Problem
To collect the data, the team measured cycle times, generated surveys and looked into information from the various processes needing to be delivered.
- The team found that the average time in audit processing was taking about 12.5 hours, and in order to increase through put by 30%, they need to improve the processing time to under 8 hours.
- By creating a Pareto Chart, the team was able to see that manual audits accounted for 80% of the deliverables.
- After creating a Value Stream Map, the team found a multitude of non-value-adding steps, including redundancies and unnecessary steps.
- Key Take Away:Â Approximately 90% of the current manual audit process included waste in the form of: Redundancies, Inspections, Wait Time and Corrections.
This was actually the tool [Value Stream Map] that launched me into the Green Belt training because I was like, OK, I kind of got an idea what this means but I need more education to be able to use this one. So thatâs the one that actually triggered me into getting the Green Belt training.
I remember when I first got approval from my boss to pay for the Lean Six Sigma training, he said, âThatâs manufacturing. How is that going to apply here?â And I said, âI can think of tons of ways that it could apply them. I mean I just finished the Yellow Belt and I had a long laundry list of things that I could improve or just quick changes.â
Analyze Phase: Identify the Cause of the Problem
It was time to identify the root causes, so Lynne and team went to work.
- By using the Fishbone Diagram, the team found that their most common observation was that there was a large opportunity for spending time improving their own department, rather other departmental issues.
- By utilizing an Impact Effort Matrix, the team identified issues that were out-of-scope, which included things that required money to address, or as simple as the problem occurring in other departments.
- After conducting a Value-Added Flow Analysis, the team realized that 38% of the 37 steps were of waste, and that 50% of the steps were required.
Weâre so busy trying to help others improve their processes that weâre not even looking at our own department. So we have been doing things the same way for years and weâre not being very structured about it. Weâre not doing any additional improvements to it to try to make it a better process. And so, that was kind of our first like aha moment like we need to use our own skills to help ourselves so we can help others better.
Lean Six Sigma Tools Used: 5 Whys, Fishbone Diagram, Value-Added Flow Analysis, Root Cause Hypothesis. Impact Effort Matrix
Improve Phase: Implement and Verify the Solution
After conducting the necessary research, the team verified their hypothesis and the began the implementation of process improvements:
- By taking advantage of their Impact Effort Matrix, the team identified numerous potential improvements ranging from:
- Consolidating redundant standards
- Retraining supervisors on documentation requirements so everyone is on the same page.
- Re-ordering steps of an audit to minimize waiting/delays
- Creating templates for each audit tool
- The team voted for 30% of the solutions by targeting QM Department Workflows, Customer Services, and Quality Improvements.
The Improvement Results:
- QM Audits on average decreased from 12.4 hours to 4 hours to complete
- With savings of 17 hrs/wk, QM implemented 7 new audits, increased the frequency of 7 audits and produced 8 Customer Improvements
- These improvements led to a total savings of $30,768 in paid wages and increased employee satisfaction on reports by 25% and QI by 14%
There was not one cure. There were many smoking guns here.
Lean Six Sigma Tools Used: Implementing Improvements, Reducing Process Steps, Templates Created, Increase in Customer Surveys
Control Phase: Maintain the Solution
To aid in controlling the results, Lynne shares that they have since implemented a Monitor & Response Plan by continuing to collect the data and consolidate the information into an Excel workbook so that they could track every audit. In doing so, they could pull pivot tables to track key metrics, like defects and touch time.
We are able to track how weâre doing and moving forward. Weâre able to diagnose any challenges or issues that we might have in the future. We are able to drill down that level of detail that we would need.
