Manufacturing precision leaps from factories to the ER

At GE’s healthymagination technology showcase in New York, today’s focus was on how to take the same kind of highly efficient manufacturing processes that companies such as GE and Toyota use to dramatically boost quality and speed production in their factories — and apply it to doctors’ offices and hospitals. GE Healthcare’s Performance Solutions team is doing just that by using new computerized technologies — and GE’s “lean” management system proven on the factory floor — to reduce medical errors, increase capacity, prevent waste and achieve efficiencies that will save lives, time and money. As GE’s Gary Reiner, senior vice president and chief information officer, described in his presentation, it’s about “getting patients back to health and through the hospital stay as fast as possible with no-readmissions.”

At the showcase: Among the tour stops at the healthymagination showcase is the Performance Solutions display. A recent example of how the technology can boost efficiency can be seen at Florida-based Moffitt Cancer Center. It combined the new technology called Block Optimizer with GE’s management processes to expand its patient capacity to handle an additional 900 procedures per year, slash overtime costs by one-third, and boost its on-time scheduling rate to 72 percent.

As Gary told the audience, GE excels at slashing so-called “cycle times” in the manufacturing process while simultaneously increasing quality. For example, in GE’s gas turbine business (which we described in this morning’s story), condensing the time from when an order is placed to when a turbine is delivered can translate into millions of dollars in savings for a power plant. Essentially, it changes the “customer’s economics” to cut months off of a delivery, Gary explained.

Similarly, he used the example of Toyota, asking how many people in the audience had gone to a US car dealership, and not finding what they want, asked the dealer how long it would take to get the exact model from the factory. “How long do you think that takes? Sixty days. If you go to Toyota. How long do you think that takes? Thirty days. Now what Toyota has done is they have set a goal in 18 months to make that 12 days. Now when it’s 12 days, what do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to set a goal for five days. Now what happens when it’s five days or three days? All of the sudden the dealer’s economics change and the dealer no longer has to carry inventory.”

Likewise, finding ways to cut a patient’s hospital stay from five days to two, or cutting the cycle time it takes from when a diagnostic image or lab test is taken to when the results are communicated changes the hospital’s economics, he said. Costs are cut, more capacity becomes available – and patients are more satisfied. And like the factories at GE or Toyota, a culture of efficiency can begin to take root with the goal to continually drive the next set of improvements.

One example of how doctors can benefit from the performance solutions approach can be seen in New Jersey-based Virtua Healthcare, which today announced that it’s adopting GE’s AgileTrac system, which tracks and reallocates medical equipment — or operating room schedules — in real time so that usage is increased. For patients, it streamlines the care cycle by reducing wait times, ensuring on-time starts, and expediting admission and discharge. For example, flat-screen monitors will be located throughout the hospital in units like the ER, where doctors and nurses can use touch-screen features to see at-a-glance where patients, staff and equipment are located. Alerts then notify key staffers when a patient is ready for the next step in the care cycle.

Virtua’s collaboration with GE began in 2000 and the processes and technologies used thus far have helped it save $25 million to-date. Additionally, Virtua now posts the highest operating margins of any hospital in New Jersey.

* Read the Virtua announcement
* Watch a video about GE’s performance solutions work at Moffitt Cancer Center

Read other stories filed from the new healthymagination technology showcase:
* “Patient advocacy: Improving the cancer conversation”
* “Visualizing world health with the data artists at GOOD”
* “Dr. Kalkut on feeling spleens, fearful patients & design”
* “Using tech to help make a better diagnosis the 1st time”
* “Developing Health: A clinic grows in Brooklyn”
* “Prof. Bruce Nussbaum on design, tech & emotion”
* “Pediatric design turns scary MRIs into ‘Adventures’”
* “Dr. Gaynor: Individualizing cancer therapies is the goal”
* “GE announces cancer research; $250M fund; clinic aid”
* “GE webcasts Oct. 21 healthymagination press conference”
* “Tackling access with Brivo imaging technologies”
* “A closer look at GE’s pocket-sized Vscan ultrasound”
* “Vscan pocket-sized, ultra-smart ultrasound unveiled”
* “A breakthrough decision support solution for docs”
* “The business of bringing healthymagination to market”
* “At the showcase: Health by design and window tweets”
* “Scintillating tech: The world’s 1st high-def CT scanner”
* “Healthymagination tech showcase kicks off in NYC”