Process Improvement Advice & Best Practices
Constraints Management Looks at Interrelationships of Systems and Processes in a Hospital
Below is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of our recently published book, Performance Improvement for Healthcare: Leading Change with Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management
“In healthcare quality improvement, systems and processes are not synonymous, but they are interrelated. Within the scope of a process, there can be defined a system of interrelated components and variables. And every system includes one or more interdependent processes and incorporates interdependency internally. It is all a matter of perspective. The greater system of the universe, reality, or consciousness can be drilled down into the atomic process-level. The ability to change perspectives and understand the global, system-level impact of local behavior is the essence of systems thinking.
Theory of Constraints, or Constraints Management, embodies a humanistic philosophy, much like the work of W. Edwards Deming, which assumes that people intrinsically want to do a good job and that many problems are not caused by people but rather by imperfect processes and systems. Constraints Management is also humanistic in that it does not believe in layoffs or across-the-board cuts. Systems thinkers understand that cutting costs in every department penalizes the more efficient, lean departments most and necessarily has a negative impact on the constraint, jeopardizing Throughput.”
Click here for a free download of Chapter 1 of our book, Performance Improvement for Healthcare: Leading Change with Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management
