Healthcare has been a boon to the Baldrige Award, accounting for roughly half of all applicants over the last few years. To support their drive for performance excellence, hospitals and medical centers are also adapting lean and Six Sigma methodologies to improve quality, cycle time, and productivity.

At least, that was the impression.

In “Get Your Checkup” in the August 2009 edition of Quality Progress (you must be a member of ASQ to read the article), the ASQ Lean Six Sigma Hospital Study Advisory Committee reports on the results of an online questionnaire returned by 77 hospitals. While the small number of participants prevents sweeping conclusions, the study provides early indicators of the deployment of lean and Six Sigma in hospital settings.

According to the survey, 4.2% of hospitals have deployed lean, 8.2% have deployed Six Sigma, and 5.7% have deployed Lean Six Sigma. At the other end of the spectrum, 91.6% have zero to minor deployment of lean, 83.5% zero to minor deployment of Six Sigma, and 90% zero to minor deployment of Lean Six Sigma.

To their credit, the authors manage to build a six-page article filled with impressive tables out the experiences of a handful of hospitals, but even they eventually admit that there’s not much there:

“Based on those findings from a small sample, it would also be easy to question whether lean and Six Sigma have real, broad impact across hospitals nationwide, rather than just in isolated departments, or any ability to close the gap between good and bad metrics.”

Of course, it’s always possible that the small sample inaccurately portrays the prevalence of lean and Six Sigma. What do you think?

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