Value Stream Mapping in hospitals

"A strong strategy to infuse new ways of thinking into the DNA of your business and achieve higher levels of performance
is to learn to understand and manage work from a value stream perspective." Karen Martin.

We have observed frequent mistakes made throughout numerous first-time Value Stream Mapping efforts.
When mistakes are made, they are frequently not acknowledged,
which calls into doubt the effectiveness of the value stream mapping tool. It's similar to attempting to use Excel as a word processor; while it works, you don't quite achieve the outcomes you were hoping for.
So, below are a few findings on the downside of VSM implementation in the hospital and what can be done about it.

You begin to imitate your co-workers: We all begin Value Stream Mapping a product or service with the awareness that we are doing so,
but at some point, the person performing the work moves on to something else.
We begin to follow the person rather than stick with the thing. Even though the work they are performing is connected to what we are following,
it could appear like we should follow the person.For instance, the patient is the product at a dentist's practice. The patient enters, registers, settles in, and waits.
After the dentist completes the work and leaves the office, they are summoned in.
The nurse takes their folder and makes some adjustments before updating the file on the computer and storing it.
In this instance, we have ceased observing the patient and have instead begun to watch the nurse at work.
Attempting to complete a Value Stream Map without the final good or service being rendered:
We are all aware that it might be challenging to always "see" the product move through the entire process when teaching others how to conduct value stream mapping.
For the client to observe the procedure and complete all the boxes, it is occasionally necessary to assign homework.However, there are instances where businesses believe they don't have enough time to obtain a complete
Value Stream Map because the process takes too long or won't begin for another month.
They must present a savings plan to management by the end of the week. They frequently believe that they
can make decisions by visiting their engineered standards, completing the information boxes, and then predicting their savings.In this instance, the individual has forgotten some of the Lean fundamentals.
First, they have a Process Map rather than a Value Stream Map because they haven't looked at the inventory.
Second, how would you identify waste possibilities without knowing how the time criteria were established?
Third, the person operating may be distracted by a variety of factors. For instance, it might take me an hour to fix the brakes on a car, but every time I start,
I also have to perform three oil changes. When the work isn't done, we must pay close attention to the task itself and—more importantly—what happens to our product.
Value Stream Mapping in the Office: Many hospitals have data on their operations and value streams on their computers because there is so much information on computers today.
The amount of inventory between processing steps, the processing times, and the number of individuals in a specific section can all be obtained in real-time.
Layouts of the plant floor are recorded, and the drawing can be used to compute actual journey distances within the hospital.
It is feasible for many businesses to construct a whole value stream map in-house and have it technically sound.Technically speaking, the Value Stream Map may be accurate, but we exclude the chance to watch what is happening.
You will never understand why your lead time is so long if you don't observe.
Most daily operations never get recorded in any standard—such as phone calls, rearranging tasks, or interruptions.
Time is doubled counted: Understanding what belongs in an information box and what a processing step takes some time.
For instance, switchovers. Because it is stated in every book, we know that they go into the information box.
However, occasionally, people continue to enquire as to why that moment is not reflected on the lead timeline.
And how about travel time? I need to travel for 15 minutes between processing steps; hence my value stream map should feature a box for journey time.
Does that qualify as processing time? What do we put in boxes for processing?Here, it's important to distinguish between the factors contributing to inventory accumulation and the work required to finish the item or service.
Long transport distances and lengthy changeover times can contribute to the collection of merchandise.
These things should be eradicated as a result. They are in charge of the company's inventory, which we can see.
While we count the inventory, we will consider them when calculating our lead time. Recognize the factors contributing to inventory accumulation vs.
the actual processes involved in providing a good or service to a consumer.
Not using pooled resources: Some resources are shared in the majority of hospitals.
These assets are necessary to support many service families. They could be people, operating rooms, objects, tools, etc. A receiving area in a lab would serve as an illustration.
They disseminate the samples after receiving them from numerous labs. We would get erroneous outcomes if we neglected this during the Value Stream Mapping process.
Don't forget to list the shared resources. If you don't, you'll incorrectly calculate essential values like the Talk time and cycle times.
Mixing different service families: When Value Stream Maps start to get overly complicated with numerous branching streams entering and exiting the primary Value Stream,
it may be because the service families weren't sufficiently defined before the Value Stream Mapping.
One or both of the prior issues typically worsen this issue: either failing to recognize a shared resource or focusing on the person rather than the service.
We risk becoming sidetracked and taking the incorrect processing path if we don't do an excellent job with the product families.
Before you begin Value Stream Mapping, ensure you are familiar with your service families.These are not the only errors you may make in your initial Value Stream Mapping sessions,
but many hospitals make them when they begin to learn about it. Hospitals will avoid these pitfalls if they use the Value Stream Mapping tool more effectively.
Like anything else, your skills will improve the more you practice.

Reference:

Agile methodologies

The downside of VSM in hospitals and what we can do about it

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