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People over age 55 account for 92% of COVID-19 Deaths (data from CDC). Sweden is using similar data to leave the country open for most citizens while asking seniors to stay at home. How do we reopen the economy? Self-quarantine seniors; let everyone else get back to work.
Here’s the 2019-2020 Influenza (i.e., Flu) deaths. Again, seniors are 83.5% of deaths. The flu death rate is about 1 per 1,000. COVID-19 death rate is 1-2 per 100, perhaps lower in people under the age of 55 and higher for those over age 55.
Countermeasure: Self-quarantining seniors will help flatten the curve and prevent overwhelming healthcare.
Continue Reading "U.S. Deaths by Age Group as of 4/24/2020"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Jay Arthur Blog, QI Macros.
We know that Lean can collapse cycle time by 75% or more. Here’s what that means for COVID-19:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“If you’ve ever done any Lean projects, you know pretty much if the process is this long {gestures}, with Value Stream Mapping and Spaghetti Diagramming, you can collapse that by maybe 75%, 80%, 90%. You can actually reduce the cycle time for almost anything and do it easily.
“One of the things that is creating optimism for me is that a few years ago I worked with an aerospace manufacturing company, and typically to get a Request For Proposal through, it was 1.9 years for any new part.
Continue Reading "Lean Response to COVID-19"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean.
Webinar 3 of 3: April 8, 2020 More than 40 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur first doing an overview on the IHI’s goal, and then going into more detail and highlighting examples on how implementing Agile Lean Six Sigma can speed an organization’s improvement process and better sustain results.
Continue Reading "IHI Trillion Dollar Checkbook Webinar, 3 of 3"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Healthcare, Webinar.
One of our QI Macros users offered to share his dashboard of paramedic response during the Seattle area response to COVID-19. His team transported the first COVID patient in America. As you can see, turnaround times (TAT) at the hospital averaged 30 minutes and temperatures spiked in transported patients.
Continue Reading "COVID-19 Paramedic Dashboard 2020"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Jay Arthur Blog, Lean, QI Macros.
Back in 2002, thousands of miles from New York City, I worked with a hospital in Oregon. I was amazed to find that they had staffing data from 9/11 about the up and down for that month. As you can see in this X Chart, absenteeism (understaffing) was lower for each of the four following days, 9/12-15, and then recovered. I have noticed this pattern with COVID-19 as well: a week of paralysis followed by a return to normal. Unfortunately, healthcare workers haven’t had the luxury of downtime when dealing with the new crisis.
So don’t be surprised if crisis and uncertainty cause you or someone you know to hit the pause button.
Continue Reading "How Crisis Affects U.S. Healthcare Workers"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Jay Arthur Blog, Lean, QI Macros.
If you’ve ever been sick, you know that the only thing you can do is wait it out. Here’s what we’re going to have to do:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I know all of you have had some sort of cold or flu or been sick for a while. The day before Thanksgiving in 2014, I had this really heavy cough that came from the darkest recesses of my lungs and I said, “That’s not good.” Then I felt a little worse on Thursday, and on Friday I was diagnosed as having the flu.
Continue Reading "The Economy is Sick"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, QI Macros.
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“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“I don’t know about you, but right now, I’m staying home because of the directives around COVID-19. I know there’s a lot of people out there who have been displaced and are out of work, and now might be a good time to learn a new skill. I can tell you: being able to do some data analysis that results in problem solving is a skill that every, every, every business wants.
Continue Reading "Learn Data Analysis for Problem Solving"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Manufacturing, QI Macros, Service, Six Sigma.
Coronavirus means that we can’t wait weeks for training and months for improvements. Healthcare has to embrace Agile Lean Six Sigma to handle an infection that could overwhelm existing care facilities. (Hint: This has nothing to do with doctors and nurses, but everything to do with the patient.) Here’s how to do it:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software]. You know, I think we’re at this place in time where we can no longer wait two to four weeks for training and four to six to twelve months for projects to get done.
Continue Reading "Agile Lean Healthcare Now"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Webinar 2 of 3: March 5, 2020 More than 60 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur first doing an overview on the IHI’s goal, and then going into more detail and highlighting examples on how implementing Agile Lean Six Sigma can speed an organization’s improvement process and better sustain results.
Continue Reading "IHI Trillion Dollar Checkbook Webinar, 2 of 3"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Healthcare, Webinar.
At the ASQ Lean Six Sigma Conference in Phoenix this week, Katie Castree with Accumen presented an excellent improvement story about reducing over-collection of blood tubes in a hospital. Here’s the story:
Baseline: 317 extra tubes of blood collected every day (115,705/year)
93% of tubes were not used (clinicians thought it was much higher and resisted changing)
Most of the unused tubes were collected in the Emergency Department (focus on the ED, not the entire hospital).
After the countermeasure (not collecting tubes unnecessarily), extra tubes dropped from 317 per day to 118 per day saving $12,335/year and 0.27 FTEs. Over time, extra tubes dropped to only 84 per day, a 74% reduction.
Continue Reading "Reducing Blood Sample Over-Collection"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Jay Arthur Blog, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
