How one medical group leverages Lean in metrics-driven initiatives

Note: This article was excerpted from an article appearing on HealthLeaders Media, August 14, 2017.

What are the metrics that healthcare leaders need to watch to ensure clinical, financial, and strategic success in an era of endless healthcare transformation? For Oregon Medical Group, a physician-owned multispecialty clinic of 140 providers in Eugene, key metrics fall into five strategic pillars:

• Quality
• Patient experience
• Healthy workforce
• Growth
• Total cost of care

But defining success in those pillars is about more than scores on an annual report card or completing one-off projects, says Karen Weiner, MD, MMM, CPE, the group's CEO.

In the spring of 2016, the group began implementing a daily management system (DMS) that has taken the high-level goals of the organization and translated them into the daily work of clinicians and staff.

The DMS, an element of Lean business methodology, is especially interesting because it allows workers to choose their department's metrics. For example, while the group tracks CGCAHPS (Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) scores to monitor patient satisfaction, the DMS has helped improve results around particular questions related to accessibility by telephone.

"We had low scores in that area, so the clinics decided we'd make a goal of fewer than 5% dropped calls," says Weiner.

The clinics then measure themselves against that goal daily, and report their results as part of an organizationwide huddle every morning that includes the central business office looking on via smartboard.

"Well, we did get more than 5%," Weiner says. But the group noted that the spike occurred between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., so they shifted staff around so that there were no outbound calls during that hour, freeing everyone up to take inbound calls.

Source: HealthLeaders Media