Drive Lean Sigma Performance Improvement into Any Hospital or Healthcare Environment

“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) looks like it is around to stay. It will require hospitals and other healthcare organizations to become ruthlessly efficient to survive reimbursement rate reductions. Even if ACA fell, managed care organizations have caught on. They will leverage patient volume to drive reimbursement rates steadily down. Medicare and Medicaid will follow. Lean Sigma may not be the only way healthcare organizations will survive, but it’s a proven solution. In Lean Sigma–Rebuilding Capability in Healthcare , Dr. Wedgwood has presented a roadmap to successful implementation of Lean Sigma.”

–Richard H. Allen, Dr.P.H., Allen & Allen Consulting, LLC

Lean Sigma, widely proven in other industries, can offer even greater value in healthcare. In this guide, Ian Wedgwood walks you through all leadership aspects associated with planning, executing, sustaining, or reinvigorating Lean Sigma in your hospital, system, or clinic.

Drawing on his extensive experience helping healthcare organizations improve, Wedgwood explains Lean Sigma without “stat speak.” Focusing on care providers’ unique challenges, he offers a practical roadmap for making Lean or Six Sigma work. He demonstrates it through real case studies, illuminating key facets of change that are too often ignored.

Coverage includes

• How failure points in conventional change methods prevent performance improvement

• Lean Sigma’s structured change approach: why infrastructure and sequencing matter so much

• Integrating Lean Sigma with strategy and operations

• Elevating individual process performance

• Launching a Lean Sigma program or revitalizing a stalled initiative

• Learning from experience, and increasing program maturity

Whatever your Lean Sigma leadership role–from patient-facing staff to senior executive to performance improvement specialist–this guide gives you an indispensable foundation for success.

Dr. Ian Wedgwood has more than 18 years of experience in guiding organizations through change. He has designed and led dozens of performance excellence deployments globally in industries as diverse as healthcare, electronics, engineered materials, banking, medical devices, and chemicals.

1. Introduction
2. Existing Change Models: Why traditional Healthcare models are struggling