Creating a culture of operational excellence in healthcare requires a multi-faceted approach focusing on people, processes, technology, and continuous improvement. Healthcare organizations are often challenged by siloed departments and lack of common direction, leading to inefficiencies and suboptimal outcomes. To combat these issues, a cohesive approach is beneficial to ensure connection between various functions. This encourages individuals and teams to coordinate processes and share valuable information. Having spent much of 2023 navigating the healthcare environment with a loved one, I saw first-hand how operational inefficiencies burdened and frustrated the various healthcare providers.
Operational excellence in healthcare hinges on three traits:
- a system of daily improvement,
- work organized to flow value to patients, and
- a management system that aligns strategy, performance measures, and people development.
The disciplines of Lean Six Sigma, applied to reduce waste when every extra step can cause a patient irreparable harm, have proven particularly effective in the healthcare context, enabling organizations to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. While process management may not seem to be the purview of L&D, ensuring employees know what the processes are and how to follow them clearly is!
Technology also plays a significant role in streamlining clinical workflows and enhancing collaboration through:
- automation,
- intelligent workflows, and
- data insights.
Utilizing technological innovations can reduce the workloads of healthcare professionals, allowing them to focus more on patient care. With a drastic shortage of healthcare workers, we are approaching a crisis if we don’t find ways to create efficiencies while improving effectiveness. Systems require training to get the most out of them, and training tailored specifically to role and need works best toward fostering a culture of excellence.
Leadership support is another critical element to building operational excellence in a healthcare setting. Leaders must model good behavior, celebrate successes, and maintain expected routines to establish a culture conducive to improvement. But you can’t measure people on things you have not given them the skills to execute. You must first find ways to create competency and then hold people accountable to demonstrate that competency. In terms of leadership and culture, the sum of behaviors, norms, and values within an organization contributes to building operational excellence and sustaining success over the long term. Additionally, only leaders can truly provide the space for learning and reflection to occur.
