Improvement Insights Blog

There’s an invisible cost associated with poor quality: no customers. In healthcare, it’s called LWBS. Here’s what that stands for, and what it could mean for your business:

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

“One of the things nobody thinks about is the invisible cost of Quality: no customers.

“I’ve been seeing dermatologists (I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where it’s always sunny),I’ve been seeing a dermatologist for many years, and I was seeing the doctor for a while, and then I got punted down to a PA, who I really liked. And then, I don’t know if they got bought by some giant dang company or something, but I called up and tried to make an appointment, and the automated attendant was going to give me the first available. Well, I don’t want the first available, I want to do it with the person I know. I want a continuity of care, I don’t want to be just random, you know… I don’t want to be a random part in this process. And it was just so frustrating, because the level of quality had been dropping and now they just wanted to put me with any old body.

“And guess what? In my building where I work, where QI Macros lives, there’s a dermatologist. I went down there, I said, “Can I make an appointment?” The woman said, “Would Thursday be okay?” Ha! So I took a new dermatologist after 20-some-odd years, just because I was pissed about how I was handled.

“You know, my mom always said that when it came to health care, she felt like a can of corn run over a scanner. When I start to feel like a can of corn run over a scanner, I look for some other supplier.

“So that’s my Improvement Insight for this week: Don’t forget that what you’re doing has impacts. And the thing is, people will vote with their pocketbook. They’ll just walk away. And the options for doing that are much easier. And even for me, all I had to do is travel three floors instead of three miles to see this new dermatologist. who turned out to be just fine.

“So that’s my Improvement Insight: think about the people you’re losing. In health care, that’s what’s known as LWBS, or people who ‘Leave Without Being Seen’ in an emergency department. They come to the emergency department, see it’s too full and they leave without being seen. Well, maybe they’re having a heart attack, maybe they’re having something terrible. Guess what? They just leave… ‘Leaving Without Being Seen’. No bueno!

“So let’s go out and improve something this week. Let’s make life a lot easier for those customers to do business with us.”