An Exploratory Study Of The Challenges Of Adopting Lean Thinking For Manchester Mental Health Liaison Service

A visit to the emergency department (ED) is usually associated with negative thoughts by most people. It creates preconceived images of overcrowded waiting rooms and routine long waits for treatment (Jarousse, 2011). From 1996 to 2006, ED visits increased annually from 90.3 million to 119.2 million (32% increase). During this same time period, the number of EDs has declined by 186 facilities creating the age old lower supply and greater demand concept (Crane & Noon, 2011). There are many contributing factors that have led to an increase in ED visits. A few of these key drivers include lack of primary care access, rising of the uninsured population, dwindling mental health services, and the growing elderly

This assignment will define and analyse the need for a chosen service improvement within the pathway of mental health, as well as evaluating the suggested service. Demonstrating how this service can inform and benefit integrated practice, discussing the ways in which the agency’s statutory obligations and responsibilities impact on both individual and group decision making. The chosen service improvement for this assignment is the introduction of a mental health nurse into primary care services, for example, a GP Surgery. Focusing on service users with mental health issues in the community and therefore in the care of the local Primary Care Trust (PCT).

Contemporary Challenges in Mental Health Care Provision and Management 2 B73M20 Cohort 09/09 Student ID: 20328

We will now evaluate the for mentioned companies and break down their respective attempts at implementing Lean Sigma. The first input we will evaluate is the Leadership Commitment to successful deployment. In 1995 GE Electric, at the time a very financially stable organization, the current CEO Jack Welch provided direction to the entire organization would be embarking on Six

“Lean is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value-added activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the **product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.” Lockwood [24].

Throughout this course I have learned about the various challenges that impede productivity and efficiency at today’s hospitals. These issues facing the modern healthcare organization come in varying forms from technological, staffing, and financial to name a few. There are no limits to what hospitals can face in these modern technologically savvy times. Below are the major issues that today’s hospitals are facing, though there are many facets to these topics it will be described as best as possible to meet overall challenges:

Lean maximizes throughout by reducing waste. It started out in manufacturing and production, and later branched out to be adopted in other areas. It is increasingly being deployed in startups, and in strategy analysis.

To be involved in shaping the future of mental health in the NHS would be an exciting opportunity for me. I have worked in both acute and mental health hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS); where I have seen first hand the disparity between access to services for patients with mental health and those without. There is less funding in mental health compared to physical health and a lack of understanding between different providers, which service is best suited for referrals or the actual process for the referrals.

The goal of adopting the lean system by our health care organization was driven by obtaining the GCI accreditation and becoming one of the lead healthcare organizations in the middle east. At the beginning It was difficult to fully implement that system by a highly hierarchical organization. Until now we have consistent modifications in order to transit from a partial lean approach to a larger scale ( Graban, 2011). One of the most challenging issues in PICU sitting was regarding chronic patients who required long term ventilation. The hospital administration received numerous complaints from the admission office, ER manger, PICU manger and nursing staffs. The bed occupancy of the PICU reduced, which in turn lead to increase the waiting time

Virginia Mason is on the forefront of implementing lean to improve their organization by creating more value-add and eliminating nonvalue-add operations. Organizations that implement lean have to make it a culture and philosophy change and not just a tool to increase profits and deduct waste. Therefore, each person within the organization uses lean in their day-to-day professional life. According to Virginia Mason Institute (2013), “A true culture of innovation inspires staff to routinely try new things without worry of success or failure, because it is about trying many ideas to find the one that will work best.” Virginia Mason uses a plethora of tools to identify sources of waste. The tools that Virginia Mason uses are: Everyday lean ideas (ELI) system, Moonshine lab, Informatics in clinical daily work, and Innovation grants.

To combat this overwhelming deficit in Healthcare, The government has created a Mental Health Action Plan update to the National Framework for Mental health, outlining over 25 areas for improvement (Royal College Of Nursing , 2014). By addressing the needs of the population as a whole, Mental Health Services have been given a much needed lift.

A quantitative study conducted by Lifvergren, Gremyr, Hellstrom, Chakhunashvili, and Bergman (2010) analyzed the experiences and from a hospital group during a three-year period after the introduction of Six Sigma. It reports on 22 large Six Sigma improvement projects, their results and influence on other improvement activities. The study shows that 75% of the completed projects reached their goals within 18 months. The average net cost savings per completed project/year was $55,300. Overall, the results showed that Six Sigma is a useful concept when trying to improve healthcare processes. They recommend that Six Sigma should be an addition to the improvement practices used in healthcare development initiatives. It was also observed that the Six Sigma program can create much organizational pull regarding quality management and improvement efforts if teamwork is applied.

The application and implementation of lean principles or thinking is a process that requires commitment from every stakeholder in the organization. This process entails commitment to the organization's workers and to the system itself in order to make changes towards improvement. Generally, the implementation of lean thinking is geared towards continuous improvement through the elimination of waste. However, lean management or implementation of the principles sometimes incorporate mistakes that are made by leaders in the execution process. This is mainly because lean leadership appears to be simple though its complex because of the costs associated with it. The mistakes usually occur because of intrinsic complexities of exploring deeply into organizational philosophies, business strategy, psychology, and macroeconomics.

Lean is defines the manufacturing philosophy that reduces the time between the shipping and customer demand, which based on the systematic method by eliminating waste, that means giving the customer what they want when they want it, and don 't waste whatever. Rahmana, Sharif and Esa (2013) suggested lean production is mentioned to improve the company 's performance from the philosophy in reducing waste in order. That means, lean system destination is the decrease cost by removing the non-value activities, which they are applying a category of tools and techniques for checking and eliminating defective in the production process. In the Evenort Company should emulate the five overriding principles of lean thinking in terms of implementing lean that there is guarantee the company has been driving correctly in the lean manufacturing (Cardiff 2015) as can show in table 1.

Lean is a process where creating more value to customers by minimizing wastage, time with less resources. Lean organization understand the customer value and try to increase proceed which adding more value to the business. In order to accomplish the lean thinking