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Health Care Services & Consulting

Healthcare Consulting
Lean Healthcare Strategy
Process Improvement
Education
Case Studies

Healthcare Consulting

3M Health Care Services and Consulting (HCSC) provides expertise to healthcare organisations seeking to implement process improvement and sustainable change. Download our brochure (pdf, 1.1MB) to find out more.

3M has successfully applied Lean Six Sigma principles and tools to execute projects in numerous organisations, including the NHS and Dental industry:

See more healthcare consulting case studies »

As a global Lean Six Sigma company, 3M has many years’ experience in project execution within our own operations, as well as externally with both suppliers and customers. Let our healthcare consulting business help you to achieve your process improvement goals.

Lean healthcare

Lean healthcare methodologies are used for process optimisation and to add value, whilst Six Sigma helps to measure and eliminate defects and variation within processes.

Lean Six Sigma is not just a set of tools, but also a business operating philosophy. The customer is the focus of all activity, and the value attached to a service or product is defined from the customer’s point of view. Approaches such as value stream mapping through the use of Lean Six Sigma focus directly on the customer’s perspective to drive continuous improvement. This could be to maximise areas such as patient flow within a hospital through process mapping.

Approaches such as ‘value stream mapping’ through the use of Lean Six Sigma focus directly on the customer’s perspective to drive continuous improvement. For example, improving areas such as patient flow within a hospital through process mapping. ‘Non-value added’ activities are reduced or eliminated and the customer reaps the maximum benefit.

Why Lean Six Sigma?

Lean Six Sigma has helped 3M and its customers reduce defects in quality and eliminate variation in processes (see case studies). Reducing waste in all its forms increases process speed, resulting in faster processes that are focused on building exceptional quality and value for the customer.

By combining change management principles with proven process improvement methodologies, 3M HCSC offers a menu of services to help organisations make data driven and evidence informed decisions that meet their strategic goals and close the gap in their organisational goals.

Why choose 3M HCSC?

We have a strong and proven track record in healthcare:

We understand the types of challenges NHS Trusts often face, and the way Trusts typically work to resolve these
We have skills across the spectrum of healthcare

We know our approach to understanding how to improve processes works:

Lean Six Sigma is at the heart of what we do
We have worked with customers across 3M to add value
We have expertise in process flow and redesign

We offer practical solutions with measured outcomes

We are reliable and customer focused

Lean Healthcare Strategy

Delivering sustainable benefits is a challenge to all organisations. Creating a clear vision and developing an effective strategy are fundamental to all process improvement efforts.

Sustaining improvement to deliver ongoing successful outcomes requires buy-in from all levels of an organisation. Achieving this is no easy task. 3M has the experience of implementing a process improvement mindset which is linked to organisational strategy. Since 2001 3M has delivered over $7bn in savings through this approach.

3M Health Care Service & Consulting is able to support senior level management teams develop a framework for prioritisation and planning that will help deliver financial and operational goals.

By aligning strategic goals to continuous improvement, organisations can focus on the priority areas that will deliver the desired outcomes:

3M’s own Lean Six Sigma Vision is a top-down initiative which permeates through the organisation. 3M Health Care Service & Consulting is able to apply this learning to our customers who are also looking to drive productivity and efficiency throughout their organisations, whilst maintaining service levels. Key to achieving this is getting the strategy right upfront to begin embedding a change culture throughout the organisation.

Achieving Breakthrough Performance for our Customers, Employees and Shareholders

“To attain our goals, Lean Six Sigma is absolutely essential both as a management philosophy and as a business tool. I cannot overstate its importance to both our growth and our efficiency"

George Buckley
Chairman of the board, president and CEO

Process Improvement

3M has considerable expertise in project management and process transformation. The process transformation cycle should be data driven to ensure step-change improvements are achieved and maintained.

Use your mouse to hover over the graphic to find out more detail about the elements of process transformation.

To understand what areas can be improved, it is necessary to understand what the process looks like today to be able to identify gaps between desired and current state and the critical reasons behind this. From this critical factor analysis a new future state can be developed which will require effective change management in order for sustainable improvements to be made.

Situational Analysis

Understand the current process through a variety of different approaches to establish a baseline for improvement. The scope of the project should be established to ensure the parameters are clear from the outset. This should highlight the problems associated with the current process and what benefits could be derived from making improvements.

From this, the current process can be documented to understand the critical inputs and outputs of that process. Data should be collected on key project indicators, as well as perceptions of value, waste and current disconnects.

Gap Analysis

Once today’s baseline is understood, it will be possible to understand the current gap between today’s performance and desired performance. This should be reflected in the project objective i.e. what does the future state look like in terms of a measurable outcome. Root cause analysis can be applied to identify key reasons that cause the critical factors to go wrong. This will highlight areas to improve and to test.

Implementation Planning

Change acceptance planning is a key part of any process transformation work to ensure that key stakeholders are involved. Developing a strategy for rollout and a communication plan to officially launch and rollout the new way of working will be critical. 3M has developed numerous communication plans for this purpose.

Future State

Having identified the critical factors and identified the key improvement areas, a future state can be developed. This is likely to involve a combination of ‘quick wins’ that can be easily implemented and more complex process redesign. Mapping the new process and performing multi-variable analysis on critical improvement areas will help finalise the desired end state.

Control & Measure

Ensuring sustainable change and improvement requires developing a structure and framework for accountability around the critical factors. 3M HCSC has expertise in developing effective control plans to support process improvement. Having clarity around roles and responsibilities to support the new process are critical to success. Ideally key activities within the control plan should be measurable and should form the basis for any measurement tracking system associated with the improved process.

Education

Extensive experience in healthcare has given 3M HCSC access to a breadth and depth of knowledge. We have a team of trained coaches on hand to deliver Lean and process improvement courses to support your transition to Lean healthcare.

We also have team of Clinical Nurse Specialists available to provide educational support on procedures and products.

Customised On-site Training courses for Lean and Six Sigma:

These are standards based, but customised to your organisation’s needs.

Providing an overview to Lean and Six Sigma, 3M HCSC can provide customised education solutions that can be delivered on-site in your organisation. These customised solutions incorporate:

Situational analysis: Value stream mapping, process mapping, PDCA cycles, Kaizen events
Gap analysis: Multi-variable analysis, FMEA, C+E
Future state: Should maps, A3s
Change management: Change Acceptance planning
Control & measure: Control plans, RACI matrix

The education and training courses are conducted onsite in a classroom format, or in work areas as required. Interactive learning and hands-on training, where applicable, would be part of the education sessions.

Understanding process improvement:

Healthcare Consulting

Customer Benefits

Personalised and Interactive Initial Delivery: This service is personal and allows participants to clarify their questions.
Customised and Comprehensive: This educational solution is developed especially for your institution, making it both comprehensive and effective.

3M Health Care online Education Programmes

As an independent training alternative, or as a complement and support to the Assessment and Gap Analysis, 3M provides online education through it's e-learning website.

Case Studies

To view in a browser window click the 'View' button. Alternatively right-click and select 'Save Target As...' to save a document to your local machine or network.

Name	Download	Video
Hospital, Microbiology Dept – Sample processing Working with 3M using Lean thinking and observation studies has allowed the microbiology department to make rapid and continuous improvements leading to the processing of 13% more samples.	69KB
Endoscopy Department Productivity Study 3M mapped current process and worked towards a “future state” for the department involving all key stakeholders. Data collected on theatre suite utilisation and session optimisation over 3 days yielded 6000 data points for review.	72KB
QMC Nottingham No standard protocol existed for draping, leading to inefficiency when using (disposable) drapes. Clear financial savings were identified by establishing a universal economic draping system.	58KB
Techceram Milling Centre 3M mapped process from milling centre to lab, and lab to dentist of volume throughput of premium zirconia selection for crown and bridge work. Key process improvements were identified for product selection to stabilise volumes through period of economic downturn.
Theatres & Pre-Operative Assessment Facilitation of Visioning session for Trust theatres and day surgery teams to prioritise project workstreams. Spin-off project mapped pre-operative assessment process to minimise waiting time and reduce cost of day of surgery cancellations.	88KB

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