by Ted Eytan, on 15 May 2006 05:05 am
The Journey
Flow: It takes time
I’ve discussed this before - one piece flow, or flow of any kind is antithetical in health care, or perhaps in all work environments. When I work with colleagues, it seems that everyone is buoyed by the idea that they can juggle many balls at once. I’m going to make an admission - I am not very good at juggling balls. Why? Because I feel that if I can’t finish something, really nail it down, then it is not worth starting. The result is that I take a mini-time out or ask people to slow down. Those who know me probably can’t imagine that I ask others to slow down, but I do. This probably explains why I drift to one piece flow as a concept so easily.
Last week I was confronted with another mini-project where I think lack of flow did us in. It started as a minor enhancement to our electronic medical record application. There was a piece of workflow that needed to get tested, the last mile if you will. It was not tested and the functionality was released to less than positive results. Our staff immediately went to use the functionality using the untested workflow, and there was uncertainty if it was working or not. We’ve spent some time doing cleanup on this one, in addition to all of our “regular” work. On the one hand, we all feel that we don’t have the time to squeeze in urgencies like this. On the other hand, I feel that an investment of time up front to explore the functionality a bit more would have left us better prepared.