Improvement Insights Blog

Six Sigma for Insurance Companies

This weekend I exhibited at the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM). The risk managers were interested in our Lean Six Sigma books, training and QI Macros software, but every so often I’d offer a demo CD to someone and they’d say: “Oh, we don’t need that. we’re an Insurance company.”

Insurance companies like to pretend that they don’t take forever to do anything and make tons of mistakes while they’re at it.  This is nonsense. Insurance companies desperately need Lean Six Sigma.

My wife and I recently changed from COBRA to self-pay with United Healthcare. Everything seemed to go smoothly.

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Posted by Jay Arthur in Service, Six Sigma.

Project Management vs Lean Six Sigma

Last week we exhibited the QI Macros Quality Management Software for Excel at the the PMI Global Congress in Orlando, FL. I was surprised to discover how many PMs were worried that Lean Six Sigma would some how replace them. While quality management is an important part of the project management body of knowledge, it’s not the only thing PMs do.

So here’s my simple observation about the differences between project management and Lean Six Sigma:

Project Management and Lean Six Sigma are related, but don’t overlap that much.

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Posted by Jay Arthur in Service, Six Sigma.

Surgical Hospital Shut Down

The Denver Post reported that the Colorado Orthopaedic and Surgical Hospital was shut down this week after a patient’s death. What went wrong?

• Patient was given a a pain killer in too high a dose.
• Patient was left alone for 15 minutes after receiving the drug.
• Staff was unfamiliar with the crash cart.
• The rapid reponse team had trouble reaching the patient’s room.

The nurse involved resigned.
What did the hospital pledge to do? Increase training on emergency response.

All too often, managers think that better training will lead to better results. Unfortunately, employees come and go. Training degrades over time (you lose 90% of what you learn if you don’t use it in 72 hours after training.)

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Posted by Jay Arthur in Service, Six Sigma.