Applying Lean Six Sigma in Health Care: A Practical Guide to Performance Improvement

Health care organizations are increasingly challenged by the need to provide high-quality, safe, and efficient patient care while keeping costs low. Lean Six Sigma, which provides a framework to improve quality and increase efficiency with clear and measurable outcomes, is an essential tool for managers to set the health care industry on a sustainable path.

Written to address this growing demand for Lean Six Sigma expertise in healthcare organizations, Applying Lean Six Sigma in Health Care: A Practical Guide to Performance Improvement provides a step-by-step explanation of the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) process as well as performance improvement techniques and terminology. With a focus on learning through doing, readers will actively engage the DMAIC process by applying it to an improvement project that is carried through the text.

• An active learning approach where students read, calculate, write and reflect as they work through problem-solving exercises, case studies, and other activities.
• An ongoing case study on improving pain management (in chapters 5 -10) that demonstrates a completed process.
• A capstone project that engages students in applying all phases of DMAIC to complete a Lean Six Sigma project.
• Excel practice throughout to show how data is summarized (Chapter 6), analyzed (Chapter 7), and reported (Chapter 9).
• Excel files and templates (such as Gantt charts and Cause and Effect diagrams) that offer additional resources and examples provided online.