Florence, 28 Oct. (Adnkronos Salute) — There are more than 200 projects presented by over 90 companies throughout Italy to compete for the prestigious «Lean Healthcare Award 2022» to relaunch post-covid healthcare.
The Asl Toscana Centro is among the 25 finalist companies with the project «Agendas on Lean: redefinition of patient-flow in radiology in Empoli», coordinated by Dr. Francesca Luppi, diagnostic imaging referent Empoli, Fucecchio, Castelfiorentino and San Miniato.
The intent of the work, supported by the Hospital Management, the Department of Technical Health Professions and the Department of Diagnostic Imaging, was to bring out the impact of the radiological imaging phase on the patient’s flow and on his stay in hospitalization facilities.
Patient flow is the process by which patient movement and clinical productivity are achieved.For this reason, the multidisciplinary working group, composed of Marina Pira, TSRM Radiology Empoli Coordinator, Ettore De Rosa, TSRM Administrator of Radiology Information Systems, Dr. Andrea Pierfederico Sampieri-Director Radiology Empoli, Stefania Bagnoli, Radiology Nurse, Teresa Mulè, Radiology Nurse, Simona Marchetti, Radiology secretary, has started a reorganization process aimed at improving the quality of care through a more efficient and effective management of available resources and abandoning traditional management logics in favor of innovative logics such as those to which Lean philosophy directs.
Lean Management was born in Japan in the 50s conceived by Taiichi Ohno, Toyota engineer and presents itself as an organizational-management philosophy oriented to the creation of value for the customer by reducing waste and optimizing company resources.
The waiting times for taking charge of MRI requests for hospitalized patients were analyzed, starting from the causes that determine the delays up to the revision of the flows, both of internal and external patients who access for II level diagnostic tests.
In 2021, 111,398 instrumental investigations were performed in Empoli Radiology, of which 7,840 Magnetic Resonance investigations.The project started from an average detection of about 5 days of taking charge for MRI requests on hospitalized patients, high times that affect both the duration of the hospital stay and the overall quality of care. One of the non-clinical causes of delay in discharge is in fact represented by the delay in taking charge with diagnostic imaging, especially for what concerns investigations such as Magnetic Resonance imaging, characterized by long machine times.
With the application of this model it was possible to reduce the time for initial management by about 60%. The dynamic management of the supply based on the demand trend and the control of clinical-organizational appropriateness, by the team, has also made it possible to increase the Cup offer through the unlocking of unused seats and the insertion of new slots in the agendas for the first access in short code.
«Lean Thinking, experimented and applied within this project, has made it possible to solve the problem by operating economically and focusing on the optimization of available resources — explains Dr. Luppi — the attention as well as being paid to the satisfaction of the main objective, which the project set itself, has led to the achievement of equally relevant secondary results such as the increase in the offer to the metropolitan Cup for the first accesses, the application of the model in parallel on the CT diagnostics of the radiology of Empoli and Fucecchio.We also considered key aspects such as the safety of care and the control of sources of stress for operators.»
«I am proud that our Hospital is among the finalists of this prestigious award and to represent the Company in this milestone. The implementation of patient flow management with Lean techniques has led to an increase in awareness, with better path management and communication in the team. The level of satisfaction of the organization related to the quantitative and qualitative results achieved, favors the drive to work towards continuous improvement and perfection to which this philosophy directs, concludes Dr. Silvia Guarducci.
A technical jury has selected the finalist projects and on November 10th the final award ceremony will be entrusted to a scientific jury in which 3 projects will be awarded according to different categories identified.
The Oscars of Health is an award aimed at the best reorganization projects in the Healthcare and Lifescience world in which both public and private health companies and companies belonging to the Healthcare, Pharma and Medical device sectors can participate with project ideas related to different issues, including the management of hospital clinical pathways as in the case of the proposal of the Asl Toscana Centro.
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Source — https://www.univadis.it/viewarticle/asl-centro-toscana-tra-finalisti-del-lean-healthcare-award-2022-oscar-della-sanita