Six Sigma Blog by Jay Arthur

Improvement Insights Blog

Latest "Six Sigma" Posts

5/12/22 Healthcare Zero Harm / Trillion Dollar Prescription Webinar

Over 50 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to achieve both the goal of “zero harm” as well as IHI’s goal of cutting healthcare waste by 50% by 2025.  https://www.qimacros.com/pdf/Zero-Harm-Trillion-Dollar-Prescription.pdf If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Templates Wizard, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version. Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help to generate a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or by just guiding you through the purchasing process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Webinar.

Run from Run Charts to Control Charts

Consultants spend a lot of time teaching people how to create run charts. This assumes you’re starting up a new measurement from scratch. Not true. There’s more than enough data laying around to use with control charts which tell you so much more about performance. Here’s why:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“When I attend some of these meetings, people spend a lot of time trying to teach run charts. “Well, when you have fewer than 15 data points, use a run chart.” Well, I want to suggest to you if you don’t have 15 data points, go find some data that does, all right?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.

How to Ensure the Adoption of Countermeasures

Ever wondered why it’s so hard to propagate improvements from one group to the next? Here’s why and what to do about it:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I was recently at one of the IHI presentations at their conference and they mentioned… “How long does it take for medicine to adopt a new practice?” On average it’s 17 years… 17 years. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? I think penicillin was 25 years, and some of the other things… but 17 years?

“They say, “Well, you know, we haven’t peer reviewed that, so we have to peer review it so we can confirm that your hypothesis is correct and that we can actually…” Right?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

4/19/22 Healthcare Zero Harm / Trillion Dollar Prescription Webinar

Over 75 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to achieve both the goal of “zero harm” as well as IHI’s goal of cutting healthcare waste by 50% by 2025.



https://www.qimacros.com/pdf/Zero-Harm-Trillion-Dollar-Prescription.pdf

If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Templates Wizard, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version. Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help to generate a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or by just guiding you through the purchasing process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Webinar.

Thriller Novel Insights for Improvement

Thrillers and detective novels always have two villains – -the bad guy and the internal bureaucracy. As a Quality Improvement hero, you will face the same problem. Here’s why and what to do about it:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I’ll admit it: I like to read thriller novels. I do, right? I just find them terrific… or detective mystery novels. Invariably the good guy has to go combat some bad actor somewhere. It could be the murderer, it could be a terrorist, it could be whatever it is, but the good guy almost invariably also has to fight the bureaucracy of his police department, the CIA, the FBI, the… whatever the heck it is, right?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

Creating a Quality Management System Piece by Piece

Some people think that Quality Management is an all or nothing event. Not true. Here’s why and how:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“Very often, people talk about creating a quality management system, but it’s as if you can create one from whole cloth. No, you can’t, right? Very often, most of your organization does not need full-blown quality management yet. I always say “start with the worst first,” and there’s a lot of research; Diffusion Of Innovations suggests that four percent of your business (or four steps out of 100, one step out of 25) is causing most of the mistakes, errors, waste, rework, lost profit, patient harm, whatever it is, right?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

The Myth of the One Right Answer

In school, they always made you search for the one right answer. In real life, things are rarely that simple. There are often many right answers. Here’s how to choose the best among those:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“I don’t know about you, but in school – first grade all the way through college – it seemed like they were preaching that there was always one right answer to a question. You had to get that one right answer to be able to get a hundred percent on your test (unless it was an essay thing, and then that was a different thing).

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

3/16/2022 ASQ QMD – Zero Harm Trillion Dollar Prescription Webinar

Over 187 members of the American Society for Quality’s(ASQ) Quality Management Division (QMD) signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to achieve both the goal of “zero harm” as well as IHI’s goal of cutting healthcare waste by 50% by 2025.



https://www.qimacros.com/pdf/Zero-Harm-Trillion-Dollar-Prescription.pdf If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Templates Wizard, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version. Send an email to support@qimacros.com

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Webinar.

3/15/22 Healthcare Zero Harm / Trillion Dollar Prescription Webinar

Over 50 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to achieve both the goal of “zero harm” as well as IHI’s goal of cutting healthcare waste by 50% by 2025.



https://www.qimacros.com/pdf/Zero-Harm-Trillion-Dollar-Prescription.pdf If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Templates Wizard, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version. Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help to generate a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or by just guiding you through the purchasing process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Webinar.

Getting Leadership Onboard with Control Charts

People often worry about how they are going to get their leadership on board with using control charts. It’s easy. Here’s how:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I was on a presentation and I was watching Zoom and I was looking at the chat window to see what people were asking, and somebody said, “Well, how do I get my leadership team on board with using control charts?” I have a simple answer for that: Start using them. Right?

“The moment you start using control charts, your leadership team will say, “Oh, what’s that for, and what are these lines for?”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.