How does a hospital survive COVID challenges?

Good Samaritan, Lebanon leveraged their culture of continuous improvement!

As with any industry, healthcare has been impacted by the COVID crisis. More than others, they are on the front lines with surges in patient care, urgent changes in schedules, data and information, as well as daily demands for safety, quality and efficiency. WellSpan has a

foundation in Lean and continuous improvement to build on and build on they did! During our January 2021 Go-Lean-Peer Group kick-off, WellSpan Good Samaritan had the opportunity to showcase some of their incredible work on the front lines of patient care.

One of their key lessons learned is that it is important to match the industry culture with the

continuous improvement tools. They aligned problem solving similar to patient care; focused, rapid, with follow-up on sustainment. Large projects are still occurring, but they discovered that by focusing on a disciplined, rapid problem-solving process that drove through the 4C's of Concern, Cause, Countermeasure and Check, they could eliminate the larger "projects" of the past. Leveraging this Rapid A3/4C approach, the team at Good Samaritan was able to implement process improvements in their Multi-Use Drug Flow for Isolation Patients, Medical Transport Process for Isolation Patients and Breast-Feeding Survey Response Process. In addition, they positioned triage supplies for accessibility and created a Family Connecting Line on the Unit.

As they worked through the COVID challenges, they also leveraged their foundations in Lean Daily Management to overcome shift and changing personnel issues with flexible and/or virtual huddles. The team focused on what changed. The metrics, familiar cadence of the huddles and the discipline of problem solving has helped them overcome many challenges.

Thank you, Good Samaritan team! Interested in learning more about the Go-Lean-Six Peer

Group? Contact us at info@Go-Lean-Six.com.

Have a great lean journey story to share? Contact us at info@Go-Lean-Six.com. We are always looking for "host" companies.