It's almost unfathomable to see that there may be any functional synergy between a hospital and a car maker. That does not mean that one can not leverage other's forte on how to adhere best practices and accelerate changes to boost process efficiency.
When Toyota brought the best practices of Toyota Production System (TPS) to the doorstep of the Dallas-based Parkland Memorial Hospital, it was just more than reflection of a model corporate citizenry. It's an example of touching a human life by sharing the industry knowledge with the society.
TPS looked at Parkland's so-called discharge time, which is the time between when a doctor gives green light for a patient to go home and when the patient actually leaves the ER. Before TPS got involved, the average discharge time was about 54 minutes in January 2017. If the discharge time can be cut down, the bed would open up faster for a new patient. TPS looked at all elements, including paperwork and calling a social worker, to find areas of opportunity. What they found was a holding pattern for engaging a social worker. TPS then instituted a minor, but significant, change to the workflow of elements that constitute the discharge time by creating a pro-active alert message to engage with the social worker early in the cycle. As a result, the discharge time was reduced to 31 minutes in September 2017.
The cross-industry collaboration made Parkland's ER team more hands-on and proactive. Now, the Parkland is looking for opportunity to improve this key metric further, by reducing the discharge time to 15 minutes. What
When Toyota brought the best practices of Toyota Production System (TPS) to the doorstep of the Dallas-based Parkland Memorial Hospital, it was just more than reflection of a model corporate citizenry. It's an example of touching a human life by sharing the industry knowledge with the society.
TPS looked at Parkland's so-called discharge time, which is the time between when a doctor gives green light for a patient to go home and when the patient actually leaves the ER. Before TPS got involved, the average discharge time was about 54 minutes in January 2017. If the discharge time can be cut down, the bed would open up faster for a new patient. TPS looked at all elements, including paperwork and calling a social worker, to find areas of opportunity. What they found was a holding pattern for engaging a social worker. TPS then instituted a minor, but significant, change to the workflow of elements that constitute the discharge time by creating a pro-active alert message to engage with the social worker early in the cycle. As a result, the discharge time was reduced to 31 minutes in September 2017.
The cross-industry collaboration made Parkland's ER team more hands-on and proactive. Now, the Parkland is looking for opportunity to improve this key metric further, by reducing the discharge time to 15 minutes. What
