DailyKaizen

Healthcare is a heavily regulated industry.  There are literally dozens of government agencies and oversight organizations that have an oversight function.  This means there are lots of rules, regulations and policies that have an impact on almost every process.  While often all of this oversight can be frustrating and wasteful for the most part it serves a purpose.  Regardless, it is only good business to make sure that you are compliant.

Over the last couple of weeks during the value stream work it has been interesting to see how rules and regulations have been interpreted and deployed into the processes of the organization.  As we conduct process walks I have learned that you need to question every rule.  So often we have heard teams tell us that things cannot be changed or improved, because of a rule or a policy.  While much of the time this is very much the case, just as often it proves to be more perception or interpretation then fact.  For example, we visited a team early last week that had a double check built into their process that greatly increased cycle times.  The team believed that this check was necessary as defined by a government agency, but this was not really the case.  At one point, years ago, this checking process was required, but the regulations had changed.  This change had never been communicated, so the team continued to over-produce. 

Let me be clear that my message is not to encourage teams to not be complient.  I am simply calling out that so often what we believe to be true, or what once was true in no-longer true.  In highly regulated industries it is very important for organizations to not be passive about understanding, managing and communicating rules and regulations.  These rules will constantly be changing and teams doing the work need to be supported in helping interpret or deploy these changes.