DGMC goes lean

Published July 19, 2012
By Nick DeCicco
60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- The incessant chiming of timers beep throughout the Travis Conference Center as part of a simulation of a working hospital.

Airmen from David Grant USAF Medical Center, dressed in scrubs to correspond with their duties in the game, bear bewildered looks as they move between stations, part of a ballet of confusion as they process their fictitious patients through their hospital exams, X-rays and more.

Unable to communicate prior to the exercise, the Airmen flounder.

Though frustrating, the participants' confusion is purposeful.

The situation is the first of three in a weeklong Lean for Healthcare course that members of the University of Tennessee's Center for Executive Education hosted July 9 through today. By week's end, the caregivers learned principles to improve the experience of visiting the hospital for both patients as well as caregivers.

"In the first simulation, we didn't know what we were doing," said Master Sgt. Jerome Hannon, 60th Medical Support Squadron, with a laugh.

Two groups of approximately 50 Travis Airmen participated each week in the course.
Hannon was part of the first week's group. His class showed an 80 percent improvement from the first phase to the final one in "value-added time," said Lee Anne Law, Continuing Medical Education director at UT. Value-added time is activity which moves a patient closer to resolving the issue which brought the person to the hospital.

"The processes taught allow people to determine the capacity to handle patients," Law said.

The course's concept is founded on the lean manufacturing principles developed in the 20th century by a Japanese auto manufacturer. Members of the UT staff modified the course's principles for health care providers in 2006, focusing on cutting down waiting time for patients while streamlining procedures for hospital workers. An Air Force-specific installment of the course was launched in 2007.

Means of improving procedures include facility layout and how supplies are stocked as well as looking at other inefficiencies in the hospital's systems and improving them.
Chief Master Sgt. Julie Lyn, 60th Medical Group, said she was immediately applying concepts she learned in the course during a shopping experience at a local retailer of home improvement and construction goods, calculating her own value-added time as she proceeded through the store.

Excited about applying the concepts she learned, Lyn said the course teaches its students to start small.

The course organizers have visited numerous Air Force bases. Keith Leitner, UT's Air Force AFSO21 Level II Certification Program faculty director, said people start the program with a healthy skepticism, but by the course's end, Airmen are ready to go back and implement their lessons.

"It's invigorating for us to watch," Leitner said.