Solution to hospital problem

Sudburys Health Science North HSN like many other hospitals in Canada is in crisis Recent Emergency room wait times are 19 hours long 4th worse in Ontario As a tertiary health centre the people of Manitoulin depend on this regional hospital to support our local hospitals and staff

The HSN staff is frustrated The patients are abandoned in hallways The government ie the taxpayers gets stuck with the everrising bill already more than 40 of this Provinces bankrupt budget and soaring debt How much longer will we continue playing this insane game that destroys everyone

Over 60 years ago the Japanese auto makers learned lessons from Henry Ford then used those lessons to beat their US teachers the powerful US automakers The weapon the Japanese used was TPS Toyota Production System Two decades ago this TPS system was transformed into a universal rapid improvement method made available to all and renamed Lean Thinking LT

Thousands of organizations around the world have successfully used LT to get better outcomes ie fewer mistakes faster response ie cut queues in half lower costs ie cut costs immediately by 30 then an additional 10yr of cuts for more than 20 years and better satisfaction for both customers and staff ie less frustration Yes even hospitals have successfully implemented Lean Thinking

Lean Thinking is a lifetime commitment often more than 2 decades to fully implement For a faster fix we have TOC Theory of Constraints TOC gets you about 80 of the benefits from Lean Thinking but can be implemented in 3 months to 5 years Even faster we can get a 10 to 600 improvement by implementing ISO 9001 Quality Management in 1 year or less

Has Health Sciences North heard about these opportunities Maybe thats why they are in the current crisis I wonder why they are ignorant or decided not to implement Has the North East LHINs heard about these techniques Isnt that supposed to be the LHINs job to help hospitals change for the better

Why dont more organizations do Lean Thinking or TOC or ISO Lean Thinking TOC and ISO are hard work They take continual practice Its like deciding to win the Gold Medal at the Olympics its easy to decide to go after but takes supreme effort to achieve Why bother doing that level of effort if you dont have to Only 538 Canadians out of a country of 37 million volunteered and worked hard enough to go to the last summer and winter Olympic games and only a handful of these Canadians got medals Is it easier to understand why the clanking inefficient fossilized bureaucracy of the Ontario medical system beats down most individuals who might dare making dramatic improvements In spite of this some individuals in the fossilized hospital bureaucracy have achieved greatness Thankyou to all of them for never giving up

While our hospitals have some champions who achieve greatness many others cared tried to help but eventually gave up long ago Today they go through the motions trying to personally survive and keep their sanity for another day in their bureaucratic dungeon called a hospital

Unfortunately there are far too many hospital staff and other coattail riders who have too much to gain by continuing to milk their sacred cow in this defunct medical system These are the ones who prevent change so that they can continue to take unfair advantage of the public purse in spite of the consequences for the innocent public Shame on all of these parasites

Date : 11 May, 2012
Reference : www.midlandfreepress.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3557884

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