Canadian hospital taps Kaizen to overcome challenges

Ross Memorial Hospital, a healthcare organization based out of Ontario, Canada, had a problem. While it was effectively managing both high- and low-risk patients in the emergency room, those with mid-level injuries (such as bone fractures, kidney stones and serious cuts) tended to wait longer for care. For any healthcare agency, delivering high-quality, fast care to all patients is a crucial mission goal.

Staff turned to Kaizen to help devise a way of addressing this issue. Doctors and nurses set up a Kaizen event to discuss potential strategies that would help them deliver even care to everyone staying at the hospital. Critical care educator Jennifer Geelen coordinated the Kaizen event, and helped to come up with what she calls a “moveable situation,” My Kawartha reports.

The idea was to create a waiting space with chairs and recliners in a strategic area of the emergency department. People could chose to move through the chairs and be evaluated by nurses and physicians as they moved between critical-need patients, or they could be placed in a waiting room where they willingly accepted a longer wait time. Primary physicians would see them in these exam rooms.

Called the Rapid Assessment Fast Track (RAFT), approximately 60 percent of the hospital's emergency room patient flow now uses this flexible approach.

“When you give a patient a choice – would you like to stay here where you are and maybe wait two hours or get up and move through the process and spend 20 minutes; they really like the process,” explained Green.

“Our numbers are incredible, but it all depends on how the patient is presenting and their history,” she added, noting the system sees quite a few children. “It's also a perception thing. You at least feel as though you're doing something. You're not just sitting there, waiting.”

Lean healthcare

Hospitals are facing a number of daunting challenges, ranging from new legislation to the integration of technology. This has been stacked upon age-old problems, such as maximizing quality of care and expediting appointment times.

Kaizen is widely seen as the answer to many of these issues. Lean healthcare promotes the reduction of wasteful process, and therefore can be applied to a variety of those situations.