8.10 End-of-Chapter Case: A Bloody Work at the Hospital Laboratory

Upon graduation, Alexis received an offer to work for the local university healthcare system, which consisted of general hospitals, children’s hospitals, and several units and institutes spread across the state. While pursuing her degree, Alexis was able to have two internships. In the latest one, she had worked on lean six sigma projects for a company’s warehouse. That organization was having various issues with quality, waste, and excessive time moving items. Alexis had the opportunity to lead two highly impactful projects during her internship tenure. Her work had been highly praised.

Alexis’s new senior manager at the hospital healthcare system interviewed her during the hiring process and was aware of her knowledge and skills working on improvement projects. Such experience had been a deal maker for him in extending to her a job offer, as the hospital’s new leadership team wanted to focus on improving many aspects of its operations and enhancing further customer service.

Healthcare was exciting because of the impact on people’s lives, but it was also a completely new environment for Alexis. Her first assignment in the new job consisted of examining the main hospital’s lab. There had been observations and complaints about the time taken for blood test results to become available. Alexis put her team together and started the process. After the first steps, she told her team they were going to the gemba—they would follow a tube of blood from the time a phlebotomist collected the specimen until the lab released the test result.

The team took notes of everything throughout the tube’s journey and asked a few questions to process owners along the way. They noted that the phlebotomist would draw the blood in about 10 minutes, but the specimen would not make it to the automated test instrument until over an hour later. Instead, the specimen would wait in the phlebotomist’s cart while the professional collected additional specimens. The healthcare professional would then take the tubes accumulated during the period to the lab in one trip. Additionally, the specimen would wait at a laboratory rack before going into the testing instrument.

The automated test instrument took about 15 minutes to complete the task and produce printouts. Nearly one hour after the machine completed the task, a technologist would take the slide from the machine and read it for cell count. Subsequently, the technologist would enter the data into the information system and produce a printout. However, the technologist would wait close to an hour to read the accumulated printouts at the printer and verify them together. Finally, the results would reach the requestors.

Questions

1. Map the process described in the case.

2. Identify value-added, and non-value-added activities.

3. Identify any forms of waste and justify it's presence.

4. Would purchasing faster testing equipment benefit the process at this point?