Assessing the Evidence of Six Sigma and Lean in the Health Care Industry
Item
Title
Assessing the Evidence of Six Sigma and Lean in the Health Care Industry
Abstract/Description
Background:
Popular quality improvement tools such as Six Sigma and Lean Systems (SS/L) claim to provide health care managers the opportunity to improve health care quality on the basis of sound methodology and data. However, it is unclear whether these 2 quality improvement tools actually improve health care quality.
Methods:
The authors conducted a comprehensive literature review to assess the empirical evidence relating SS/L to improved clinical outcomes, processes of care, and financial performance of health care organizations.
Results:
The authors identified 177 articles on SS/L published in the last 10 years. However, only 34 of them reported any outcomes of the SS/L projects studied, and less than one-third of these articles included statistical analyses to test for significant changes in outcomes.
Conclusions:
This review demonstrates that there are significant gaps in the SS/L health care quality improvement literature and very weak evidence that SS/L improve health care quality.
Popular quality improvement tools such as Six Sigma and Lean Systems (SS/L) claim to provide health care managers the opportunity to improve health care quality on the basis of sound methodology and data. However, it is unclear whether these 2 quality improvement tools actually improve health care quality.
Methods:
The authors conducted a comprehensive literature review to assess the empirical evidence relating SS/L to improved clinical outcomes, processes of care, and financial performance of health care organizations.
Results:
The authors identified 177 articles on SS/L published in the last 10 years. However, only 34 of them reported any outcomes of the SS/L projects studied, and less than one-third of these articles included statistical analyses to test for significant changes in outcomes.
Conclusions:
This review demonstrates that there are significant gaps in the SS/L health care quality improvement literature and very weak evidence that SS/L improve health care quality.
Author/creator
Date
In publication
Volume
19
Issue
3
Pages
211
Resource type
Research/Scholarly Media
Resource status/form
Published Text
Scholarship genre
Empirical
Open access/full-text available
No
Peer reviewed
Yes
ISSN
1063-8628
Citation
DelliFraine, J. L., Langabeer, J. R. I., & Nembhard, I. M. (2010). Assessing the Evidence of Six Sigma and Lean in the Health Care Industry. Quality Management in Healthcare, 19(3), 211. https://doi.org/10.1097/QMH.0b013e3181eb140e
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