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Reducing Medicare Patient Readmission Rates with Six Sigma in Healthcare
The Reality of Medicare Patient Readmissions A shocking study featured in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that one in five Medicare patients are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged, and one in three return within 90 days. These alarming numbers are primarily due to patients lacking a primary care…
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Actual Six Sigma Project Ideas – 03
More actual Lean Six Sigma project proposal examples. Project Name Problem Statement Business Case AGC Phosphate Line Punch Sticking Cold forming rings that we phosphate for AGC are sticking when they go to cold form. The customers processing time is the main impact as the parts have to be returned to us for reprocessing which…
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Actual Six Sigma Project Ideas – 02
More actual Lean Six Sigma project proposal examples. Project Name Problem Statement Business Case Increase basecap throughput on X56 From the basecap 16 cavity mold that runs in X56, 5 cavities in average are being scrapped due to dimensions out of specifications from the beginning of the year. Throughput of the press is reduced 31%,…
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Manual Reviews of Medicaid Claims
Background Our business provides administrative services to dental practices. One service is to process insurance claims for Medicaid patients. Processing involves adjudication of claims to determine eligibility. The bulk of all claims are adjudicated via an automated system. However, when this is not possible the claims are sent for manual review. Recognizing an Opportunity Manually…
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Actual Six Sigma Project Ideas
No doubt about it, “the project” is the most intimidating part of becoming certified as a Lean Six Sigma Belt. And, in my opinion, it’s also the most important part. It reminds me of learning math versus being able to use math to solve actual problems. I can recall studying algebra and feeling certain that…
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Statistics—The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The quality and process improvement professions tend to rely heavily on statistical information. The very science of quality control can be said to have begun with Walter A. Shewhart’s development of the control chart and discovery of the concepts of special cause and common cause variation. And where would Six Sigma be without statistics? But…
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Operational Definitions of COVID-19
Those of us in the process excellence and quality professions know the importance of operational definitions. Without a good operational definition, a metric is meaningless. An operational definition is a definition that includes a detailed specification of measurement. In process excellence work you will frequently discover that the opportunity your project is addressing can’t be…
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Can SPC Save the World?
As we navigate through these uncertain times, it becomes apparent that our understanding and response to the situation could greatly benefit from improved data quality and analysis. The complexity of the current health situation calls for a time-tested tool from the industrial world: Statistical Process Control (SPC). For over a century, SPC has been guiding…
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Daily COVID-19 Cases
This post is for the data nerds like me who want a simple way to keep track of the reported new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United States. Data are from the European CDC and are reported at midnight central European time each day. How ECDC collects and processes COVID-19 data Since the…
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The Great Swedish COVID-19 Experiment
While most of the world is locked in, Swedish citizens are not. Sweden has decided not to participate in draconian economic shutdowns, giving us a “null hypothesis case” with which to compare our actions. This policy may seem radical by world standards, but it is exactly the policy advocated by expert epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski. According…