Mercy Hospital North Iowa is not a household name but when it comes to a health system that is committed to really improving across the board Mercy is one of the best.
50 members of the Third Healthcare Value Leaders Network visited Mercy of North Iowa this month and found a lean jewel in Mason City.
What did we see? Voice of the customer. Every design team has a patient on it and they are very vocal! We saw all the usual activity we expect such as effective Kanban for supplies in the ER and on the inpatient side. But we also saw some things we don't usually see. We saw remarkable front line staff engagement with team leads for groups of 4 nurses who are also nurses but are there to help front line nurses solve problems. In food service we saw employee engagement which had to 830000 dollars in productivity improvement year over year and in the lab we saw work cells with one piece delivering zero lab specimen tube errors.
We also observed a remarkably committed and passionate management team including the CEO Jim Fitzpatrick. The management team is giving up control to the front line and actually excited about it! As we all know the key to a lean transformation is an engaged management team that is at the gemba and supporting daily improvement. Mercy is building that capability.
Our group dinner included the Mayor, City council members and CEOs from the various critical access hospitals that are part of the Mercy system. In fact Mercy has created a learning network much like the Healthcare Value Leaders Network so that work can be shared across the entire system in a standard work way. The leaders from the other hospitals were just as excited to learn.
This visit and other visits we have done continues to confirm the power of lean in every healthcare setting. When implemented successfully(like Mercy is doing) quality improves,cost goes down,staff are more engaged in their work and customers are more satisfied. With the chaos of healthcare reform going right now it is comforting to know places like Mercy are focused on what really matters to patients.
Leave a Reply