Taking Performance Improvement to the Next Level Using Lean Tools

Since April, a team led by Rhonda Wyskiel, Director of Performance Improvement and Innovation, has redesigning the care of medicine patients from the time that they arrive in the Emergency Department through their inpatient admission and discharge from the hospital. The team has included the people doing the work: physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, other clinicians, and support personnel. The goal is to take what we have learned over the last six years in our use of Lean Daily Management (LDM) and redesign further while building a strong accountability model for executing change to drive us faster towards our vision.

Rhonda told me: “This innovative care redesign work that we have embarked on is some of the most meaningful work that I have done to date in my career, namely because it is building off GBMC Lean Daily Management, which has fostered a culture of improvement in the organization in a way that is palpable. The key stakeholders and frontline staff who have been eagerly immersed in this work are energized in a way that is contagious.”

The new design is much more granular. Team members started by creating job instructions for the most important tasks and visual management boards that the team will update as they do their work. Managers will document that their people have been educated on the standard work and learn daily why the standard work was not completed. This will prompt them to create the next test of change using the model for improvement. Implementing the new system will be done in steps. The current units affected are the Emergency Department, Medical Intensive Care Unit, and Unit 45. Once the new system is rolled out and a new steady state is achieved, it will be spread to the other medicine units and then on to the rest of the hospital. This is a fabulous next step for us as we get better at getting better! I want to thank Rhonda, and all who have been working with her for this great work.

The Yanks Are Coming to The Yard
Circle Wednesday, August 7th on your calendars for this year’s GBMC Night at the Yard & Birdland Social Night. This year’s game should be interesting as the Orioles are taking on my beloved New York Yankees. I root for the Orioles except when they are playing the Yankees. I am preparing myself to be a good sport that evening.  I think we will have a good time together regardless of the final score.

Please join me and your colleagues – and bring your family and friends too – to this year’s GBMC Night at the Yard & Birdland Social Night. For more information or to get your discounted tickets to the game and for your Orioles-themed giveaway (one per ticket), go here. Hope to see many of you at “The Yard!”