In August 2008, the Healthcare Georgia Foundation awarded a
$349,000 grant to Georgia Tech to support a two-year demonstration project
aimed at helping rural hospitals in the state adopt performance improvement
techniques. The goals for the initiative
are to help the hospitals increase their capacity to serve patients, improve
the quality of services, and reduce costs.
The process improvement activities, which include lean
techniques, have already been used successfully at hospitals in
Atlanta,
Columbus,
Newnan and Vidalia to help identify and reduce waste in a broad range of
processes used by healthcare organizations.
Georgia Tech project leaders are working with health care
professionals at the participating hospitals to conduct lean assessments, teach
basic lean concepts, develop value stream maps to analyze the flow of materials
and information, and implement rapid process improvement techniques.
Beyond the direct process improvements made at each
hospital, the initiative will provide long-term benefits by educating senior
leadership and hospital staff in process improvement and lean techniques. Success will be measured by improvements made
during the initiative, as well as the ability of each hospital to continue the
process improvement efforts after the conclusion of the program.
Participating hospitals include:
-
Banks-Jackson-Commerce
Hospital in Commerce
-
Hutcheson
Medical
Center in
Fort
Oglethorpe
-
Monroe
County
Hospital
in Forsyth
-
Morgan
Memorial
Hospital in
Madison
-
Peach
Regional
Medical
Center
in
Fort
Valley
-
Upson
Regional
Medical
Center in Thomaston
-
West
Georgia
Medical
Center in LaGrange