Impact of lean six sigma process improvement methodology on cardiac catheterization laboratory efficiency

•Lean six sigma has been used to improve operational efficiency in several non-medical manufacturing firms.•We studied implementation of Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement initiative in our Cath Lab.•This led to improvement in the Cath Lab turn time during 2009–2012.•This led to progressive improvement in on-time start during 2009–2012.•There was improvement in operational efficiency of our Cath Lab after implementation of lean six sigma process.

BackgroundOperational inefficiencies are ubiquitous in several healthcare processes. To improve the operational efficiency of our catheterization laboratory (Cath Lab), we implemented a lean six sigma process improvement initiative, starting in June 2010. We aimed to study the impact of lean six sigma implementation on improving the efficiency and the patient throughput in our Cath Lab.MethodsAll elective and urgent cardiac catheterization procedures including diagnostic coronary angiography, percutaneous coronary interventions, structural interventions and peripheral interventions performed between June 2009 and December 2012 were included in the study. Performance metrics utilized for analysis included turn-time, physician downtime, on-time patient arrival, on-time physician arrival, on-time start and manual sheath-pulls inside the Cath Lab.ResultsAfter implementation of lean six sigma in the Cath Lab, we observed a significant improvement in turn-time, physician downtime, on-time patient arrival, on-time physician arrival, on-time start as well as sheath-pulls inside the Cath Lab. The percentage of cases with optimal turn-time increased from 43.6% in 2009 to 56.6% in 2012 (p-trend < 0.001). Similarly, the percentage of cases with an aggregate on-time start increased from 41.7% in 2009 to 62.8% in 2012 (p-trend < 0.001). In addition, the percentage of manual sheath-pulls performed in the Cath Lab decreased from 60.7% in 2009 to 22.7% in 2012 (p-trend < 0.001).ConclusionsThe current longitudinal study illustrates the impact of successful implementation of a well-known process improvement initiative, lean six sigma, on improving and sustaining efficiency of our Cath Lab operation. After the successful implementation of this continuous quality improvement initiative, there was a significant improvement in the selected performance metrics namely turn-time, physician downtime, on-time patient arrival, on-time physician arrival, on-time start as well as sheath-pulls inside the Cath Lab.