Quality Matters In Case Study: Applying the Quality Improvement Techniques of Manufacturing Industries to Medical Practice By Sarah Klein
The business improvement techniques known as Six Sigma and Lean
manufacturing have been used to identify and reduce defects in production
methods for more than two decades. Though commonly used in the automobile and
manufacturing industries to reduce costs and increase profits and efficiency, they
have only recently been used to identify and reduce variance in care processes
within physician offices. Part of the reason is that medical professionals tend to
believe that the complexity of health care routines defies the type of categorization
necessary to eliminate process variation—and thus, waste. But, with the help of
consultants, a large ophthalmology practice proved it could be done