Can we learn management techniques from industry?
 Kate Hobson, who runs the ultrasound department at Salisbury District Hospital, has been receiving national publicity recently because she cut the waiting list from 12 weeks to between a fortnight and zero by sorting work into routine ‘green’ streams and complex ‘red’ ones.
Kate and her colleagues have embraced ‘Lean’, a management technique long used by manufacturing companies, particularly the car industry, to ensure that the production process runs smoothly and that no part of the operation has to wait for another.
Quoted in The Guardian, Kate says she found 67 per cent of demand coming from just 5 per cent of the possible ultrasounds: abdominal, gynaecological and urological.
So she concentrated on doing this routine work more efficiently, such as timing each type of routine scan and scheduling appropriately. The classification and quicker completion of routine work leaves more time to deal with complex examinations.
Links and info
Click for The Guardian article on-line.
Click for the PowerPoint presentation that Kat Hobson gave at a recent conference.
Click for an article from Management Services journal about applying Lean techniques to healthcare.
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