Quality is job one.  That sounds familiar.  “We define quality as doing the right thing the right way the first time and every time” says Dr. Cortese, M.D., President, CEO, Mayo Clinic.  Whether in manufacturing or health care — improving processes and working as a team are vital to delivering quality products and services.  The manufacturing sector learned long ago that if you drive out waste, variation and defect in your processes, you are more successful.  In a recent article, “Quality at Mayo Clinic” in the Spring 2008 Mayo Magazine, Dr. Stephen Swensen, M.D. and medical director for Mayo’s quality initiative says, “if in health care we apply those same principles to drive out waste, variation and defect in the care of patients, we have fewer adverse events, fewer preventable deaths and you deliver the best care more reliably.”  In health care, the consequence of error is great.  The people at Mayo do a great job, but all people are fallible.  They have distractions, have lives outside of work that can preoccupy their thoughts.  Health care workers are asked to multitask and accept interruptions as a part of their job.  Emergencies are the norm not the exception.  This is the reality and nature of medical care.   So putting in place systems and procedures is important to cover for those rare occasions when a person is not at his A game.  People + systems + procedures = high reliability. 

The need to reduce “cycle time” is never more important than in health care.  The smaller the time between when a patient is admitted and when he or she receives angioplasty — the higher the success rate.  At Mayo a multidisciplinary team was created to review every case and look for opportunities forimprovement.  Dr. Kristine Thompson says the key is teamwork.   Transparency and communication are necessary components to a robust process improvement initiative.  The culture must reinforce that it’s good and right to seek help.  For more information on Mayo quality initiatives visit:  www.mayoclinic.org/quality and www.mayoclinic.org/quality/quality-measures.html

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 am. Please comment or trackback.