A Lean Six Sigma approach to improve the Emergency Department of University Hospital “San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d'Aragona”

Abstract

The Emergency Department (ED) is an area of a hospital where healthcare personnel is normally faced with severe and sudden problems. Here patients and caregivers have to undertake visits, assessments, consultations and bureaucratic procedures which can be lengthy and complicated, due to inadequate or inaccurate information. In these conditions, waiting times can often be very long and patients may decide to abandon ED. In recent years, hospital process organization has had a notable improvement thanks to the implementation of the Lean Six Sigma methodology. In particular, ED processes improvement foresees the reorganization of all activities, from the patient admission to the ED upon home discharge or hospitalization. In this article we look at the data collected from the Emergency Department of the University Hospital of Salerno "San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi D'Aragona" to demonstrate the positive influence of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in ED in order to optimize the services offered to the patients.