An expansive, covered dropoff lane accommodates 15 cars, and a curbless lane ensures easy access for the institute’s many wheelchair-bound patients. We plotted the steps of the patients and designed the building that way.” In doing so, the new facility incorporates patient flow patterns not possible in the previous facility.įor patients, the changes are recognizable even before setting foot inside the new institute. Horton says, “We looked at everything as linear. Staff mapped how patients navigated through the previous facility and its services where patients waited and why and how physician and staff time and energy were spent moving about and treating patients. Schreeder and administrator Lee Horton - assessed the previous facility and how improvements could be made there, and they also compiled recommendations for improving patient flow for a new facility that would be built, incorporating their learnings into facility design as well as the processes that would take place at CCI.ĬCI’s improvement strategy was never termed “lean,” yet it did begin with the core lean concept of value-stream mapping. “He could see that his existing facility would not be able to handle that load.” Rahman’s team and institute staff - led by Dr. “ was seeing a serious growth in cancer patients at his existing facility,” says Rahman. The absolute numbers are disheartening, but the Society reports that for the most recent reporting period (2003 to 2004), cancer deaths dropped by 3,014, and the death rates from all cancers (indexed by population totals) decreased from 1990/1991 to 2003 by 16.3 percent among men and 8.5 percent among women.ĬCI is one of only a handful of oncology treatment facilities serving an area of approximately 3 million persons, so capacity is a concern. The American Cancer Society predicts that 1.44 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and 560,000 will die of the disease. Improving the ability and capacity to treat cancer patients is important given the number of persons afflicted with cancer and the relative efficacy of treatment. That belief led him and CCI to enlist lean assistance from a small team lead by Maruf Rahman, director, process improvements initiatives, Office for Economic Development, The University of Alabama in Huntsville. “Healthcare has to take a look at what it’s doing with the same tools as industry,” he adds. There is no reason to talk about outcomes unless you talk about processes. If we’re going to do the best we can do, we have to pay attention to our processes. Our competition is our own inefficiencies. While board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology and hematology, he says he is “plagued by an industrial systems engineering background” (he graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with an undergraduate degree in industrial and systems engineering): “It kind of hurts to see something that’s not operating right. I don’t think I’m unique in that regard.”īut Dr. I think most people who want to improve what they’re doing recognize that. “I think the recognition that healthcare is a service industry is out there. Schreeder says the level of “service” the institute can offer patients improves the ability to treat them effectively and efficiently and is at the core of healthcare. Marshall Schreeder and his colleagues had begun reengineering the way they served patients. The new $29 million Clearview Cancer Institute (CCI) began seeing oncology patients in October 2006, having moved from a facility where founder Dr. They have implemented a range of healthcare process innovations that make the new facility atypical, and, in doing so, improved their ability and capacity to serve cancer patients and, most important, they improved the patient experience. Physicians and staff have tirelessly reengineered the institute’s processes and patient flow to eliminate as much waiting and waste as possible. The Clearview Cancer Institute in Huntsville, AL, is a dramatic exception. Yet, somehow, healthcare and waiting often are synonymous. Waiting is an activity that few find rewarding or of value it’s simply a waste of time that reduces anyone’s level of satisfaction.
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