The Value Stream Maturity Scale - A Framework for Evaluating Progress of Your Slim Healthcare Journey

If you make the decision in order to embark on a Lean journey, you need in order to start thinking about the particular magnitude of this alter, as it is enormous.
Many of your present procedures will change to become focused on patient treatment (the reason why you got into healthcare) plus much less on the particular daily aggravations of looking for all the things you need to deliver that care. You need to have a solid framework to assess the progress of your lean efforts.



First, when you think regarding the changes coming, you have to:
? Appeal in order to the rational mind: Communicate 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 modify. Staff must be psychologically committed to the change, or they will not own it plus sustain it.
? Clear the path: Great suggestions that are difficult in order to implement are doomed through the start. Concentrate on producing processes and procedures simple to understand, execute, and document.

This article concentrates on a way in order to attract the rational thoughts by providing a framework in order to assess the progress of your Lean journey as it pertains to a specific Value Stream.
Let's start by defining what a hospital value stream is: a Value Stream is really a selection of interconnected processes to provide value to a client. A value stream instance in a hospital describes the care of a patient that arrived towards the hospital via the Emergency Department, was admitted to the Telemetry unit, and was discharged home.

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

How do we track the progress of the Lean implementation on a specific value stream? All of us do that by creating a five-level framework in order to measure the progress.
Presently there are several dimensions that will we look for when assessing the maturity of an entire Value Flow, that are not observed at the level associated with the person processes:
? Connected Processes. Most of the delays in patient treatment (sometimes over 95%) in a Value Stream happens between processes, in hand-offs from one person to another, or one section to another. We do not have this presence whenever 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 for formal flow and draw methods. Without formal draw systems, patient care will be delayed in the particular Value Stream.
? Wedding. By this we mean a higher level of involvement by the entire staff. Simply improving is not really enough in a Lean Worth Stream. Without the active involvement by everyone within the task of procedure improvement, it can be difficult in order to improve fast enough in today's competitive environment.

The worth Stream Maturity Scale is utilized to assess the maturity of the value stream, within the interest of creating or modifying a process improvement plan. A Value Stream that is at Degree 0 or Level 1 represents a great chance. In fact, if you've made it this long (apparently) along with a low-maturity
Value Stream, imagine what you may do when you cut affected person flow times by 50 percent! Following is really a brief explanation of each maturity degree in the Value Flow Maturity Scale.

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

Level 2: Patient Circulation and Pull. The biggest opportunity when moving from a traditional work place in order to a Lean environment may be the introduction of flow plus pulls methods. Patient wait time in traditional conditions can represent up in order to 70% of the total individual length of stay.

Within cases where you flow products, like Sterile Digesting of Instrument sets, experience has shown that cycle period is related to a long listing of related benefits, including improved productivity, better high quality, less floor space, improved flexibility, and higher on-time delivery of the Instrument sets back to the OR EVEN 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 in Standard Work. We need to involve the entire staff in defining the one simplest way to perform work, and to train them to do the work that way.
Remember that will standard work does not limit creativity or improvement, but it does determine the way the work should be completed for the present time.
Level 4: Engagement. The stage of engagement is what separates the Lean pros from the amateurs, when we are assessing worth stream maturity. Until all of us are able to include the entire workforce within the creative work associated with continuous improvement, our Lean efforts will still be vulnerable in order to outside competitors simply replicating what we have done.

After we are generating hundreds and thousands of small improvement suggestions per year, it will be very hard for the competition in order to keep up.
Level 5: Sustained Performance. Until we all are able to include flow, pull, standard work and employee engagement into our hospital culture, items will inevitably backslide. We are able to claim that we are usually at Level 5 on the value stream maturity scale if we can shown that we possess maintained continuous improvement for a period of a minimum of 36 months.

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

Otherwise your efforts is going to be difficult or impossible to sustain.