The worth Stream Maturity Scale -- A Framework for Assessing Progress of Your Low fat Healthcare Journey

If you make the decision in order to embark on a Low fat journey, you need in order to start thinking about the particular magnitude of this change, as it is massive.
Many of your current procedures will change to become more focused on patient treatment (the reason why a person got into healthcare) and much less on the daily aggravations of looking for everything you require to deliver that care. You need to have got a solid framework in order to assess the progress of your lean efforts.

First, when you think regarding the changes coming, you must:
? Appeal to the rational mind: Connect a clear picture of the future state as well as its advantages for the patients and staff.
? Appeal to the emotional mind: Reason provides you with direction, but feeling gives you the energy essential to make the change. Staff must be psychologically invested in the change, or they will not own it plus sustain it.
? Obvious the path: Great ideas that are difficult in order to implement are doomed from the start. Focus on producing processes and procedures simple to understand, execute, plus document.

This article concentrates on a way to attract the rational brain by giving a framework in order to assess the progress of your own Lean journey as this pertains to a particular Value Stream.
Let's begin by defining such a medical center value stream is: a Value Stream is a selection of interconnected processes to deliver value to a client. A value stream illustration inside a hospital describes the proper care of a patient that arrived to the hospital through the Emergency Department, has been admitted to the Telemetry unit, and was released home.

Another value stream example describes the flow of patients that arrive towards the hospital for outpatient surgeries:
Registration -> Pre-Surgical care -> Procedure -> PACU I -> PACU II -> Discharge
Each process advances the care of the patient. The amount total of these processes delivers value to the particular patient and is exactly what we call a Worth Stream. There are many value streams in a hospital every of all of them must mature on its way in order to perfection, as that is our goal and the objective of any Lean initiative.

How do we monitor the progress of the particular Lean implementation on a specific value stream? All of us do that by setting up a five-level framework in order to measure the progress.
Right now there are several dimensions that we look for when assessing the maturity associated with an entire Value Stream, that are not seen at the level of the individual processes:
? Connected Processes. Most of the delays in patient care (sometimes over 95%) within a Value Stream occurs between processes, in hand-offs from one person in order to another, or one division to another. We perform not have this visibility if we are only looking within the process.

? Existence of Flow and Pull. Flow and draw go hand-in-hand inside a Slim environment, so it will be logical to look regarding formal flow and draw methods. Without formal draw systems, patient care will certainly be delayed in the Value Stream.
? Engagement. By this we mean a high level of involvement by the entire staff. Simply improving is just not adequate in a Lean Value Stream. Without the energetic involvement by everyone in the task of procedure improvement, it can be difficult to improve fast enough in today's competitive environment.

The Value Stream Maturity Scale can be used to assess the maturity of a value stream, within the interest of generating or modifying a procedure improvement plan. A Value Flow that is at Level 0 or Level one represents a great chance. In fact, if you've made it this long (apparently) along with a low-maturity
Value Flow, imagine what you may do when you cut individual flow times by 50%! Following is a brief explanation of each maturity level in the Value Stream Maturity Scale.

Level one: Identify the Value Flow and assign ownership. The particular first logical step within improving a value flow is to identify plus document it. This maturation level involves naming the value stream, assigning the value stream owner into it, and creating both present and future state worth stream maps.
We will also want to set up performance metrics for the value stream: Discharge overall performance, Medication Administration performance, efficiency, quality, and so upon.

Level 2: Patient Flow and Pull. The biggest opportunity when moving from a traditional work environment to a Lean environment is the introduction of flow and pulls methods. Patient wait time in traditional environments can represent up to 70% of the total patient length of stay.



In cases where you movement products, like Sterile Processing of Instrument sets, experience has demonstrated that cycle period relates to a long list of related benefits, which includes improved productivity, better high quality, less floor space, improved flexibility, and higher on-time delivery from the Instrument units back to the OR Suite.


Level 3: Standardization. Once we have gathered the low hanging fresh fruit of flow and pull, we must continue with the particular task of training the particular certifying the staff within Standard Work. We require to involve the whole staff in defining the one best way to do work, and to train them Click To See More do the particular work that way.
Remember that standard work does not limit creativity or improvement, but it does determine the way the work should be done for the present time.
Level 4: Engagement. The stage of engagement will be what separates the Slim pros from the beginners, when we are assessing worth stream maturity. Until we are able to involve the entire workforce within the creative work of continuous improvement, our Slim efforts will continue to be vulnerable to outside competitors simply replicating what we have completed.

After we are generating hundreds and thousands of small improvement suggestions annually, it will be very challenging for the competition in order to keep up.
Level five: Sustained Performance. Until we are able to integrate flow, pull, standard function and employee engagement into our hospital culture, points will inevitably backslide. We are able to claim that we are at Level 5 upon the value stream maturity scale if we have the ability to shown that we possess maintained continuous improvement for a period of a minimum of 36 months.

The starting point, obviously, is in order to map your main value streams. While the Worth Stream Mapping concept is well-know, in reality couple of organizations (hospitals or factories) have actually taken that will first step. If most likely willing to move ahead using the effort, get some expert help from mentoring organizations like Leonardo Group Americas.
Getting training plus insight from people who have done this just before many times is very valuable.
A Value Stream Mapping effort will sparkle a light around the several improvements that are required and possible, but prior to jumping into improvement tasks, apply the Value Stream Maturity Scale. If if you're not yet at Level 3, your attention should be spent on achieving flow and standardizing the value stream processes.

Or else your efforts is going to be hard or impossible to maintain.