Lean Six Sigma For The Healthcare Enterprise: Methods, Tools And Applications

This book provides a detailed description of how to apply Lean Six Sigma in the health care industry, with a special emphasis on process improvement and operations management in hospitals. This book begins with a description of the Enterprise Performance Excellence (EPE) improvement methodology developed by the author that links several methodologies including systems thinking, theory of constraints, Lean and Six Sigma to provide an enterprise-wide prioritization and value-chain view of health care. The EPE methodology helps to improve flow at the macro or value-chain level, and then identifies Lean Six Sigma detailed improvements that can further improve processes within the value-chain.

This book also provides real-world health care applications of the EPE and Lean Six Sigma methodologies that showed significant results on throughput, capacity, operational, and financial performance. The Enterprise Performance Excellence methodology is described, and also the Six Sigma Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) problem-solving approach which is used to solve problems for health care processes as they are applied to real-world cases. The case studies include a wide variety of processes and problems including emergency department throughput improvement; operating room turnaround; operating room organization; leaning the surgical outpatient screening process; CT imaging diagnostic test reduction in an emergency department; reducing light exposure for infants in a NICU; implementing sepsis protocols in an emergency department; improving timeliness and satisfaction in interventional radiology processes; incorporating methods for defining labor standards in a hospital; proposing a framework for patient-centered care; and critical success factors of an enterprise performance excellence program.

The second edition of Lean Six Sigma for the Healthcare Enterprise includes new and additional case studies. The case studies now incorporate more systems engineering modeling, simulation modeling, applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, as well as further advanced data and statistical analysis.

Dr. Sandy Furterer is a Professor of Practice at The Ohio State University, in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering. She is the Curriculum Director for the College of Engineering’s Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology program. She was a tenured Associate Professor in the Engineering Management Systems and Technology department at the University of Dayton. She teaches online courses as a part time instructor for Kennesaw State University and California State University Dominguez Hills. 

She has applied Lean Six Sigma, Systems Engineering, and Engineering Management tools in healthcare and other service industries. She previously managed the Enterprise Performance Excellence center in a healthcare system. Dr. Furterer received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in Quality Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 2004. She received an MBA from Xavier University, and a Bachelor and Master of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University. She is an ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Certified Manager of Quality/ Organizational Excellence, Certified Quality Engineer, an ASQ fellow, and a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, a Senior Member in IISE, and recent past president in IISE’s Society of Engineering and Management Systems.

Some recent honors and awards that Dr. Furterer received include: 2024 IAQ Walter E. Masing Book Prize Lean Sustainability: A Pathway to a Circular Economy co-authored with Elizabeth Cudney, Chad Laux and Gaganpreet Singh Hundal; 2024 Book of the Year Award for Lean Sustainability: A Pathway to a Circular Economy from the International Lean Six Sigma Institute (ILSSI) co-authored with Elizabeth Cudney, Chad Laux and Gaganpreet Singh Hundal; 2022 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) OPEX Division Teaching Award; 2022 Bernard R. Sarchet Award from ASEE Engineering Management Division for “lifetime achievement in engineering management education”.