The health sector

The University Hospital of North Norway is located in Tromsø, has 6,000 employees and covers a geographic area roughly the size of Denmark. After a reorganisation in 2008, the hospital initiated a comprehensive effort to review and improve continuity of care in order to enhance patients’ overall experience of their treatment. The administration has decided that the hospital will implement Lean, with the assistance of Implement Consulting Group.

A Lean hospital - training internal Lean consultants

Clinical research is a prerequisite in order for Denmark to have a high-quality, efficient and modern healthcare system. The Capital Region of Denmark , the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry joined together to ask Implement to perform an analysis of the bio-health cluster in the Capital Region and an assessment of how to strengthen the competitiveness of the bio-health cluster. 

Clinical research and testing of pharmaceuticals

Activity-based financing increases the need for continuous follow-up on the costs related to the patient pathways in the department. Implement HealthCare and the Feiring Heart Clinic have created a model for allocation of the costs that drive the treatment of patients at the clinic. The model made the clinic capable of strategically considering which pathways were profitable and provided a thorough insight into the clinic’s cost-driving activities.

Cost allocation provides an overview of profitablity in production

For healthcare professionals such as doctors, nurses, medical secretaries, psychologists and technicians, the pc is not a personal tool. They log onto PCs in multiple locations during the course of a day – and each time they can be using any number of systems. A study carried out at Copenhagen’s Gentofte Hospital found that doctors use 45 min. a day logging onto and out of computer systems – the equivalent of 10% of their workday.

Danish doctors waste valuable time on IT

Elsinore Hospital had achieved a poor score in the national patient satisfaction survey several times. In 2008, a new hospital management was appointed, who decided to change this picture. Their decision would require a change of culture, and they addressed Implement  HealthCare to gain help for the first steps in the long-term process. Together we have developed a model for involving the employees in increased patient satisfaction. 

Employee satisfaction creates patient satisfaction

Psychiatry faces large challenges such as the increasing number of patients and the difficulties in recruiting and retaining e.g. doctors and nurses. Good organisational solutions, effective utilisation of capacity and optimal patient pathways are, thus, essential objectives. The concept of organisational functionality ensures holistic and coherent improvements in planning, control and organisation.

Improvement of organisation and management in psychiatry

In connection with the tripartite negotiations, a task force was given the task of preparing a strategy for new ways of organising work in the healthcare and elderly care sectors. The objective was to gain more knowledge about what is easy, difficult and effective when thinking along new lines in relation to the organisation of work. 98 new ways of organising task-solving at hospital departments and in the elderly care sector were collected.

Flexible task-solving in the areas of hospital service and elderly care