Healthcare Quality Improvement Empowers Consumers, Employers and Practitioners;

Nursing shortages, long waiting times and increasing costs are a but a few of the healthcare problems faced in Rochester and in communities across the nation. The center for Healthcare Quality Improvement (HQI) at Rochester Institute of Technology aims to help heal Rochester’s healthcare system by eliminating waste, reducing errors and improving flow and healthcare access.

Waste: waiting for lab results and excessive paperwork are examples of waste in healthcare. Eliminating waste lowers healthcare premiums for insurers, employers and consumers. It increases the time healthcare workers can spend with patients, improving patient and employee satisfaction. This increases the "capacity" of the existing workforce, helping the nursing shortage.

Medical errors cause around 100,000 deaths each year. Reducing medical errors lowers the amount of rework and testing needed to verify that administrative and clinical processes are being done correctly. Rework and testing are non-value-adding steps—waste. Reducing waste has a positive impact on cost and capacity.

Patient flow and access can be improved through open access systems—scheduling appointments based on patient need rather than physician availability. Open-access scheduling systems reduce administrative costs including use of staff time and complex scheduling systems. Shorter wait times increase patient satisfaction in doctors’ offices and improved patient flow in hospitals and makes better use of fixed assets such as bedspace, equipment and emergency departments.

Several Rochester doctors’ offices use open-access concepts. Dr. Gordon Moore will talk about those successes at a regional healthcare quality improvement conference Nov. 8-9 at the RIT Inn and Conference Center (formerly the Marriott Thruway).

"It’s the learning to see, looking at something and seeing it in a different light—examining processes to spot non-value-added activities such as unnecessary paperwork, or clarifications that waste time by duplicating efforts, like x-rays by different consulting doctors," says Louise Vella, associate director of the Center for Excellence in Lean Enterprise, of which HQI is a part.

The Healthcare Quality Improvement center at RIT was formed to support area healthcare organizations improve their processes and operations. HQI is linked with the Rochester Health Commission, the Monroe County Medical Society, the IMC, the University of Rochester Medical Center, and the Empire State Advantage Program among others.

HQI offers several healthcare experts including:

Dr. Lise Hager, senior program manager and president of the Monroe County Medical Society. Hager is a practicing physician with a long history of applying quantitative methods and quality improvement tools to healthcare delivery. George Daddis, senior project manager, has extensive experience in the development of total quality and lean efforts. He was director of improvement for worldwide manufacturing at Eastman Kodak Co.

RIT’s Center for Excellence in Lean Enterprise (CELE) is dedicated to helping manufacturing and service businesses apply proactive lean enterprise principles. CELE is a business unit of the RIT Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies (CIMS), a world-class organization with a mission to increase the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers through applied technology and training.