Based on the Kaizen event conduct by the VVH Imaging Center and its staff, it is
clear to see that there is a lot of waste. Utilizing the lean principles that are used to
eliminate waste while achieving flow and pull there are areas that can be improved by
eliminated waste. The University of Utah published The Seven Wastes in Health Care”,
written by Luca Boi (2019), and it has taken the seven original Lean waste principles
and reapplied them to the healthcare field. Below are the seven health care wastes.
 Defects/mistakes: Time and material spent doing something wrong and, later,
fixing it.
 Waiting: When patients or their information sits in a queue. Some definitions
include employee wait time.
 Transportation: Moving patients or materials between work centers.
 Overproduction: Producing more than is needed. Producing too soon.
 Overprocessing: Doing more work than needed.
 Inventory can expire, get damaged, and become obsolete. Also applies to
stored information.
 Motion: Unnecessary movement within a workstation(Boi, 2019).
Based on these seven wastes in health care, the waiting waste seems the most
applicable based on this flow diagram. The first area for improvement is to determine if
there is a need for the patient to complete any forms, this accounts for 7 minutes. If they
are necessary, can they be completed online prior to the patient attending the
appointment. The second area to improves is the 13 minutes spent waiting in the lobby,
this clinic is typically an appointment only clinic, so appointments are scheduled and
anticipated. Is there anything we can do to eliminate the waiting in the lobby or
shortening it. The third area is to shorten the 7 minutes spent in the exam room waiting
for a CT, this time should be eliminated or drastically shortened. The last area is to
determine if the check-out is necessary, can these steps be completed during the
check-in process?
The current throughput time without any modifications is 60 minutes, of which
only the 15 minutes CT Scan time is value added, resulting in 25% of value-added time.
If you remove the 7 minutes on forms, reduce the lobby wait time to 5 minutes, eliminate
the wait in the exam room time, and eliminate the checkout time then you end up with a
throughput time of 35 minutes, which results in a 43% value-added time.
-Justin
References:
Boi, L. (2019). The Seven Wastes in Health Care.
https://accelerate.uofuhealth.utah.edu/improvement/the-seven-wastes-in-healthcare