In my last posting I
discussed how two of the new recently trained Green Belts in the Chicago area
healthcare facility used two newly learned improvement tools, namely the
Process Map (with swim lanes) and a Value Stream Analysis to solve a lingering
problem. I also spent an inordinate
amount of time describing another tool, the Interference Diagram and how it can
be used to exploit a system constraint.
In this posting I want to discuss how two another two Green Belts used
this tool to help stimulate their team, who was sort of stuck in the mud, move
toward a solution to a problem that they had been working on.
These two Green Belts had
been working on a project in the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) at this
facility and although they were making progress, they needed something that
would stimulate the team to bigger and better things. Maybe some new improvement tool would do the
trick? And when both of these Green
Belts saw the Interference Diagram for the first time, they both knew that this
tool could help them inspire their team to move in a new direction. The team met shortly after their training and
developed their own version of the Interference Diagram.
Figure 1
Figure 1 is the Interference Diagram (ID) that
this team developed and as you can see, the Goal, or what this team wanted more
of, was to be able to move this patient out of the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU)
much faster than they had been doing primarily because they needed the room for
incoming patients and they had a limited number of beds that new patients could
occupy.
If you remember my last posting, I told you
that the items in the boxes surrounding the goal are the interferences or
barriers that hold you back from achieving more of what you want. This team has identified nine (9) barriers or
areas for improvement and one-by-one their job now is to eliminate them
altogether or reduce the effects of each interference. The team’s conclusion was that these
interferences, to one degree or another, all contribute to the extended time
that patients remain in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit making the patient stay longer
than it should be. Their team’s mission
now is to brainstorm solutions for each interference and then design a new
process that will either eliminate the interferences or significantly reduce
their impact.
The team still needs to estimate just how much
time each of these interferences account for to determine the impact on the
throughput of patients into and out of this unit. As a result of the use of this ID, there is
now a desire and need to run a full-blown project such as a Value Steam
Analysis or Rapid Improvement event which will hopefully be scheduled and completed
sometime in January. I will meet with
these two team leaders this week to discuss how best to approach this new
initiative. When the team completes this
improvement effort, I will report on it here.
But one thing is for certain….these two new Green Belts and their team
members are absolutely sold on this new tool.
Bob Sproull
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