Who’s minding the work flow?

A large hospital with whom we’ve been meeting has significant work flow duplication across their revenue silos, both clinical and back office. We are trying to help them understand the evolution of operating under a single set of work flows through shared services, in-sourcing, or outsourcing, and then aim for best practices. That will provide for significant cost savings and a return on the EHR even if it’s years before the EHR moves beyond their 4 walls.

EHR without an intense review of its work flows and business rules really undermines the ROI.

The work flow effort can be started now, even prior to selecting and EHR. What is your organization doing in this area?

saint

4 thoughts on “Who’s minding the work flow?”

Paul … interesting blog. Actually the first I’ve ever read or commented on.

Education, without a plan, is just another wasted activity. There’s not a single environment that I’ve worked in which I’ve not been able to solve a problem that I’ve been presented with.

A few years ago, I facilitated a very successful Kaizen. The report out was by the team to the management group. As I was heading out of the facility the GM asked me about returning to facilitate another. I told him I was interested and asked about the issue. He was very excited and proceeded to tell me about the issue and the team he’d already compiled … Mfg. Mgr., Qly Mgr., Eng. Mgr., Production Control Mgr., Facilities Mgr, and also himself. I wished him luck with his “Dream Team” and as I commented on the years of experience I asked him to let me know about the outcome. He said that they had added up the years and they had 172 years combined.

He then asked when I would not wish to facilitate and I mentioned that they had the wrong team compiled. No managers were on the last successful Kaizen. This next issue was similar and although I would have welcomed a manager onto the cross functional team, an entire team of managers would not be a winning combination. Folks who work in and around the area where the issue was would be appropriate team members.

Healthcare is not much different than manufacturing … people need education and then activities to use and truly learn the tools and concepts. I’ve facilitated 40-50 Kaizen events in Healthcare and other environments … it comes down to an educated, cross functional team.

Work flow or another issue … it’s about how to solve the problem … educating folks from within the environment and executing on the plan.

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Paul Roemer

June 30, 2009 at 6:59 pm

I appreciate you making time to share your thoughts. Clearly education and training, especially with regard to change management are critical factors in being able to gain a decent RIO.

With the whole company focused on healthcare reform and the stimulus, I can’t agree with the notion that healthcare is similar to manufacturing. The singular goal of connecting each healthcare provider with every other is like counting backwards from infinity–twice.

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