Performance Improvement for Healthcare: Leading Change with Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management 1st Edition

Because I have relatives in the medical field (and have written on lean, six sigma, and constraints management), I read this book so I would know if I should recommend it. The answer is YES - read this book before you begin to implement ANY improvement process; it will save you time, money, and agony.Previous reviews have highlighted how the authors skillfully weave the three most popular improvement methodologies together and tell you when and how each should be applied. I agree wholeheartedly with their assessments. What they did not mention is the positive attitude the authors apply to current operations (no finger pointing, "you should have known better", etc.) They simply state prevalent current practice with incredible understanding and then suggest a way to achieve much better results. (As an accounting educator, I especially appreciate their understanding of GAAP and GASB, and the difference between external reporting and an internal decision support system.)The breadth of coverage of this book, along with its detailed and clear explanations, examples and cases, is incredible. Even TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), a methodology to analyze and solve particularly incorrigible problems, is introduced. Despite the broad and detailed coverage, the book reads quickly. However, because the material is exciting, I found it best not to read in bed at night.

The book, Performance Improvement for Healthcare, by Bahadir Inozu et al., principles at NOVACES, LLC, explains how healthcare administrators can manage their companies by using contemporary management concepts of Lean, Six Sigma and Constraints Management. These concepts all have been around for a long time, employed widely in other economic sectors and to some degree in healthcare. The book teaches how to appropriately combine these methods in an important sector of the economy.Healthcare still exhibits features of a cottage industry in the area of management, even while utilizing the most advanced technologies in patient care. Disproportionally increasing Healthcare expenses compared to the other expenses continue to be major concern for executives in government and private industry. Contemporary economy dictates efficiencies in every area and healthcare is not immune from it. Thus conditions are setting up a conflict-laden environment between payors and healthcare delivery apparatus. This book starts with a premise that good business and good patient care are paired. Good management will translate into more efficient and better healthcare delivery for the patients. The system is likely to fail everyone starting with the patient if one or another is not administered efficiently and effectively.The book starts with basic terminology. This is important and shows good insight by the authors because many healthcare administrators come from professional backgrounds who may have ascended from a technical pathway rather than a management pathway to their current position. The book proceeds with examples of thinking process, buffer management and supply chain logistics to demonstrate how one can increase the throughput even in the face of adverse payor conditions and turn a profit. The book brings clarity to the operations and helps avoid artificial constraints for a more profitable organization. Critical role of the structured Performance Improvement is emphasized, which formalizes management's traditional role of planning, organizing and controllingThis book should reside on every healthcare administrator's desk regardless of their position. The future will present tremendous challenges to healthcare institutions and people who run them. An executive administrator needs to know and understand the concepts explained in this book to be able to steer their organizations through the treacherous waters of the current economy. Failure will mean replacement. The subject matter of Lean, Six Sigma and Constraints Management will be thought of more extensively in Master of Healthcare Management programs, and the more competent and younger graduates will push their way upward and dislodge any middle or upper manager who fails to learn, understand and employ these modern management techniques in an ever shortening horizon.Tamer Acikalin, M.D, MBA

Excellent book.

I was expecting all theory, but was impressed to find it to be more of a text book. I can easily imagine people in the hospital being trained and then a few of them, as change agents, referring back to the book frequently for guidance, tools, and further understanding. The case studies were great -- just the right level of detail. So often case studies are just puff pieces (not enough detail) or sometimes the opposite, so detailed that the concept is lost. Now I better understand the authors' comment that seeing the waste and the fix are the easy part, compared to implementation in the culture of a hospital, its unique stakeholder needs, etc.Let me tell you what the book said to me personally. As I read, I thought about what it was like to write the book, working with others to define a system CPI solution that would work in many environments, combining tools (lean-sigma-constraints) and defining when/where to use which parts. I realized how much I miss working on such solutions in a team environment. My compliments to the authors.

This book, in my opinion, allows an integrated approach to performance improvement. This integrated approach is comparable to looking thorough three lenses into a system: Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management lenses. Constraint management was a new lens for me. Constraint Management "is like looking at the forest from a hot air balloon and selecting the best tree from which to pick the fruit." The Lean lens shows us the most simplest way to pick the low hanging fruit with very little effort and the six sigma lens shows us how to consistently pick the bulk of the sweeter fruits, without bruising them, at higher and difficult to reach branches of the tree. Put all three lenses together that is a vision for performance improvement for Healthcare.