ISE Magazine has included in its February issue a study entitled “Optimizing emergency services with Lean Six Sigma” by Casey Bedgood, Black Belt Leadership Fellow with Navicent Health’s Center for Disruption & Innovation. The study examines the benefits of applying the principles of Lean Six Sigma in an emergency medical setting in order to improve efficiency while reducing redundancy and error.

“Applying Lean Six Sigma to Navicent Health’s Emergency Services saved approximately 37,000 minutes of emergency response times over a multicounty region in the first year after implementation. Time equals lives. Therefore, thousands of patients received higher quality care and service when they needed it most thanks to the Lean Six Sigma process improvement,” said Bedgood.
 
Navicent Health implemented Lean/Six Sigma, a highly disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating waste, improving outcomes, and delivering extraordinary service, in 2014. Bedgood, a Six Sigma black belt and leadership fellow with Navicent Health’s Center for Disruption and Innovation, was the first Black Belt trained under the Navicent Health program. The director of Navicent Health’s Emergency Medical Services from 2013 to 2015, Bedgood has served Navicent Health EMS in various capacities for almost 20 years, including as a paramedic, field training officer and operations manager.
 
“Lean Six Sigma is applicable to global industries ranging from auto manufacturing and defense to healthcare. The unique aspect of Lean Six Sigma in healthcare is that process improvement directly improves people’s health and wellbeing. As exhibited in this study, Lean Six Sigma has the potential to save lives. The Black Belt fellows at Navicent Health are continually seeking new avenues for implementation as we improve our processes,” said Simeon Sessley, Executive Director of CfDI.
 
“Efforts such as these are core to the work we are doing at Navicent Health’s Center for Disruption and Innovation, and will be critical in helping our health system – as well as many others nationwide – prepare for future relevance and value-based care,” said Christopher Cornue, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer for Navicent Health.