July 4, 2021 mohammed.vava@gmail.com
Do you want to enhance the Quality-of-Care in your healthcare system?
Yesterday (03/07/2021), I got an opportunity to provide training for the ANM & GNM staff in a private hospital located near Saravanampatti of Coimbatore. It was prescheduled and I approached several months before and after a continuous follow up the hospital management gave me this opportunity. It was scheduled for 2 hours during the forenoon session.
enhance the Quality-of-Care -It was with a count of 22 staff including some pharmacists.
enhance the Quality-of-Care -I can observe something that they don’t know about the objective of the training, not even about the topic too. They hesitate to attend and there is no interest with them to attend this training program. They saw each other by raising their eyebrows and moving their both upper and lower lips to the left end of their face with a deep breath. One of them openly said “What sir, we are free for only these two hour but you came to engage us…”. Yes, the doctor was on leave for this forenoon.
enhance the Quality-of-Care -Finally, there was no option, senior staff came and said that it was instructed by the doctor for us to attend this training and assemble at room number 117 within 10 minutes. I observed they are not interested in attending this training.
enhance the Quality-of-Care-Sharp at 11.20am, all assembled with a paper and pen. Before starting the program one staff member murmured as “Sir, please complete within an hour and another staff member sitting nearby said as Sir please complete in 30 minutes” and laughed within themselves.
I smiled gently and removed my mask and started my training session. I started like:
Wishing a great day to all gathered here, first, I am going to clear you about three things.
1. About me
2. About you and
3rd is why we both are here.
I introduced myself as I am in the Management Faculty serving as Assistant Professor at TIPS School of Management, Coimbatore and briefed about my academic and industrial experience. Most importantly I insisted on one thing that I love to give training and my passion is teaching and engaging myself in training and development activities.
Then I want to talk about you. Who are you?
Do you know about your value?
Do you know how important you are for this society?
Do you know how this society positions you in their heart?
Will anyone show their hip to you if you ask them without this uniform?
How will they sense you if you ask a male to remove his shirt without this uniform?
Yes, this is the only service sector where all the patients give equal importance like a doctor.
They follow your instruction without any secondary thought.
Am I right?
All the staff nodded their heads and said Yes, Yes…
Now, the 3rd point is why are we both here?
We are here for a single cause that is to provide service to society. We both have the same objective. If money is the objective, we both can select any other field or sector. But our intention is to serve this society. That’s why we get an opportunity to meet each other and now why we gathered today is to get an idea about how you can improve your quality of providing service to this society.
Not mean that you are providing poor quality of service but to help out with improving and enhancing. You are aware that there is no specific endpoint for a quality in the service sector. We can improve it and can add value for some activities and again we can improve it and again fix some problems and again improve it and so on……
Let me dive into the topic. Yes, I am going to train you on how to implement Lean Healthcare Methodology?
So, what is Lean Healthcare Methodology?
Before that, what is Lean Methodology?
Lean methodology is a concept which is implemented by TOYOTA, a Japanese automobile manufacturer for the purpose of improving efficiency and flexibility in manufacturing. Initially it was known as Lean Manufacturing. Industry peoples experienced the improvements in the quality of their product and the behavioural change with their employees after the implementation of the Lean methods and concepts.
Slowly, it got attention globally and the other sectors like construction, logistics and distribution, retail, healthcare, educational institutions, BPO’s and even in maintenance sectors started to implement the lean methodology.
You can ask me a question that “Sir, if you say that this methodology improves the quality of the product, yes it was logical but you mentioned that there is a behavioural change with the employers. How is it possible, Sir?”
Yes, the two main guiding concept of Lean Methodology are Continuous Improvement, and
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- Respect to the People.
One thing you have to understand clearly is that without people, no manufacturing, no service, no product, no quality, no improvement, no profit and no Lean. Whatever the concept, techniques, tools, technology it may be, without a proper involvement of employees there will be no growth at all. That’s why these lean concepts centred around people and drive the business process for continuous improvement.
Ohno, Taiichi (1988) in a book known as “Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production” published by CRC Press says that it is derived from Toyota’s 1930 operating model “The Toyota Way” (Toyota Production System, TPS).
Again the reason for the lean evolution that is adopting lean methods by all sectors is continuous improvement and that continuous improvement is only possible by peoples. While speaking about continuous improvement, there is no end. It is limitless.
