A community health centre in Toronto and are struggling with patient flow issues which is impacting wait times to primary care.

A community health centre  in Toronto and are struggling with patient flow issues which is impacting wait times to primary care. The average wait time to access primary care is 9 weeks, and it is 4 weeks  longer than peer groups in the province. The average length of appointments 60 minutes compared to a provincial average of 40 minutes. The time from clinic contact to decision to accept client into primary care is 4 weeks compared to a provincial average of 2 weeks. Once a clinic decides to accept patient into Primary Care, it takes another 2 weeks for medical secretaries to call client to book their first appointment, whereby the provincial average is 3 days.  This presents a major 

1. What is a Kaizen event and what is the expected outcome? 2. Based on the principles and methodology we have studied in class, how can a Kaizen event help in this situation?  3. The first three steps in the 10-step Kaizen methodology are: a) Define the problem b) Define the goal, and c) Define the baseline. For the case above a. What is the problem?  b. What might be one goal to fix the problem you have identified in part a?  c. What baseline data would you collect?

2. You are an administrator overseeing a medical unit in a large hospital. Despite a robust Information System including task scheduling, many requests and directives are being handled by word of mouth or post-it notes rather than using the state-of-the-art scheduling system.  The resultant situation has caused problems with patient transport, imaging tests being missed, results not being communicated properly leading to repeat procedures, and unnecessary backlogs when patients are brought for tests too early or too late. Patients have complained that unit inefficiencies have resulted in patients moved around the facility unnecessarily for tests that often get cancelled or delayed. You have ben asked to determine what can be done to minimize variation 

Based on the situation above, please answer the following questions: a. In class, we learned about Lean, Six Sigma, and Lean Six Sigma; which of these three may be the best approach for process improvement in this situation (1 mark)? Please explain your selection based on the information provided in the case above. (3 marks) b. We learned about eight types of wastes in healthcare. Based on the situation above, please identify (3 marks) and provide an example of three distinct kinds of wastes as identified in this situation (3 marks).