SNI’s Lean Core Measures Improvement Initiative, funded by the California HealthCare Foundation, introduced and spread the use of Lean as a management strategy to streamline processes and create a more patient-focused philosophy that supports timely delivery of treatment and other health care services with optimum quality. The program, which ran from November 2008 through June 2010, increased the internal capacity of four public hospitals to continuously improve on current and future publicly reported hospital quality measures, or Core Measures. The first phase of the initiative sought to improve reliable delivery of discharge processes for congestive heart failure patients and reduce their preventable re-hospitalizations. Utilizing skills learned in the first phase, hospitals in the second phase selected a second set of core measures to improve, such as venous thromboembolism, surgical complications core processes, and ventilator-associated pneumonia. The program has shown the potential of Lean to achieve the consistent delivery of improved patient care processes, such as maintaining a 100% adherence to providing complete discharge instructions and showing a promising downward trend in the numbers of 30-day all-cause readmissions. The four participating hospitals have continued to spread the use of Lean tools and philosophy in their systems to improve care and gain efficiencies in areas such as behavioral health and contracting. This investment in Lean will prove valuable as public hospitals embark on system-wide changes under the current Section 1115 Medicaid Waiver and prepare for the implementation of health care reform.
On February 8, 2011, UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital Gastroenterologist and Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, Lukejohn Day, MD, conducted a webinar on efficiency within GI endoscopy centers, with a focus on delivering care to underserved patient populations. Funded by the California Health Care Foundation, the year-long study uncovered best practices and developed organizational and efficiency models necessary for providing high-quality endoscopic services to all patients served by public hospital gastroenterology divisions. Click here to access the recorded webinar, or see his PPT presentation here.
Contact: Mary Gregory, Senior Program Associate