Team Impact Award Winner: UHNM County Therapies Team

University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM) County Hospital Therapies Team Continuous Quality Improvement (cQI) Leadership Behaviors’ Award.

Background

The County Hospital in Stafford, Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy team attended the 5-month Level 3 (LCS 1c) Improving Together training course offered by the Quality Improvement Academy at UHNM in August 2023. Improving Together is the UHNM approach to quality improvement. Improving Together is based on the Operational Excellence in Healthcare QI methodology (Catalysis, USA).  This cQI journey is a long-term cultural improvement programme at UHNM. When given the opportunity to complete Improving Together to enhance their service, they approached it with willingness, curiosity and a desire to learn and develop the therapy service to be the best it could be for their patients and colleagues.

During the 5-month training the County Therapies team were trained in the Improving Together tools, routines and behaviours that are underpinned by Lean. As part of the alignment part of their journey the team developed their own scorecard aligned to the UHNM strategic planning framework and using data agreed which drivers they would work on. They chose two drivers aligned to the UHNM strategic priority domains of people and responsive. They applied their learning to drive their improvement work within the therapy department.

Activity

The County Therapies team worked together using data to identify their scorecard metrics to drive improvement by reducing waste and variation in practice, exploring and removing barriers to best practice and testing innovative ways of working. What mattered most to the County Therapies team in order to make UHNM a “great place for them to work” was that their staff felt that they received inconsistent and inefficient supervision (which is a professional requirement) as per the current situation data below:

• 50% of therapy staff said they hadn’t received supervision in the previous 6 weeks
• 94% of therapy staff didn’t feel they have time to prepare for supervision
• 42% of staff report not feeling confident in preparing for supervision
• 53% don’t feel confident in leading supervision

The data demonstrated that there was a lack of a clear, consistent process for supervision which had an impact on therapy staff retention, wellbeing and morale as well as staff competence, patient safety and flow.

The other driver the team focused on was “Timely Out-patient Follow-Up Appointments as only 82% of patients (see data below) were receiving follow up appointments within the recommended timescales for their conditions.” This problem aligned to the strategic priority of responsive.

Impact

The County Therapies Improving Together team have embedded daily improvement huddles and cascaded the tools, routines and behaviours to the wider therapies team. By holding regular Improving Together meetings they’ve regularly reviewed the A3s for their drivers, refreshed their data through several PDSA cycles, used tools such a standard work, status exchanges and go look learns to achieve the following improvements:

• 63% of supervision (Apr 24) are completed and recorded on time compared to 30% (Oct 23)
• An increase from 47% to 90% when therapy staff were asked do you prepare for supervision?
• A rise from 53% to 93% of staff reporting they feel confident leading supervision sessions.
• Yes’ response increased by 45% when staff asked if they have time to prepare for supervision.
• 100% of staff said they feel confident preparing for supervision
• Greater than 90% of patients now receive timely out-patient follow-up appointments (sustained for the last 6 months (see scorecard below).

The benefits of implementing change in the Therapies supervision process is:

• Supervisors feel more confident and prepared for leading supervision
• Supervisee– address wellbeing, supports developmental needs, career development, timely support with ongoing issues- de-escalates problems early.
• Organisation– staff feeling valued and supports with retention of staff.
• Patients – staff that feel more valued, increased competency of staff, improved patient care and outcomes. The County Therapies team continue to show perseverance & self-discipline to keep up the momentum of improvement.

Individual Impact Award Winner: Alex Satizabal

Alex Satizabal – LCS Impact Award Showcase

“Using CI has been a game changer on how I see processes and projects on my end… it was interesting in learning how to identify an issue and not only figuring out the root cause but how to put a plan in place to avoid future issues. This has helped me see processes at a whole new level and now we have reporting in place for this and other projects I’ve been involved in to ensure everything stays on track.” – Alex Satizabal

Background

Accounts Receivable is responsible for the oversight of accounts, paying their invoices in a timely manner to ensure the organization meets their cash targets. Identified over a 3-month period in 2023, approximately 251 accounts had significant past due amounts totaling $3.8M.

Activity

To clean up past due balances, Alex began looking at each account to identify similarities between the accounts that would identify the root cause of the past due amounts. Alex was able to identify that the accounts with past-due balances did not have a collector assigned to them. The collector follows up with customers as their accounts are approaching past due status to obtain payments. This ensures satisfaction of cash targets.

Alex collaborated with his team beginning mid-June 2023 to identify, assign, and reassign collectors to the accounts. Completed with successful education and implementation within the Accounts Receivable team by late August 2023, he also created a daily aging report to keep track of unassigned accounts for the Accounts Receivable team to review.

He then collaborated with the customer on-boarding team resulting in the customer on-boarding team assigning collectors to new customers during the on-boarding process to prevent future past due balance issues. This work began in late August 2023, included education of the onboarding team and the accounts receivable team, and completed implementation in October 2023.

Impact

Due to the activities Alex completed, the Accounts Receivable department saw a 90% reduction in past due balances.

Individual Impact Award Winner: Darren White

Darren White has been the recipient of an Individual Impact Award by LCS this year ‘Introducing Lean and OPEX thinking to a FTSE 100 with a single resource.’

• Background

I’ve been a Lean Sigma BB for circa 20 years, but normally working as part of a Consulting team or being embedded 100% of the time within a single business unit; two very standard approaches which I’m sure we all recognise. I was extremely fortunate that my employer, St James’s Place, were progressive in their thinking, and gave me the opportunity to develop a fulltime Operational Excellence role, after I had successfully demonstrated the value of Lean thinking with a small number of Practices. My remit was to build a culture of Lean and Operational Excellence thinking within our Partner network by providing consultancy services, where I would be the only OPEX resource, and where there was no existing collateral in place.

• Activity

From early 2022 through to the mid-point of 2023 my typical OPEX consultancy engagement would be 100% bespoke. I would work with the senior management of the Partner business & SJP Field Management Team to assess their issues, capability, and growth opportunities. We would jointly devise a coaching plan, which would typically be delivered over 2 months.

By mid-2023, several key and repeatable themes had emerged, allowing me to create my first OPEX Directory of services i.e. 10 topics which had most strongly resonated with the those I had worked with so far, and had always added value to those businesses. The OPEX proposition V1.0 was born.

• Impact

One of the most frequently conducted engagements has been a topic I call “Volumes v Capacity”, where I help the Partner Practice assess the amount of incoming work to the back office and compare this to the resource available, ensuring suitable allowances are factored in. I have guided over 30 Practice businesses to make appropriate resourcing and hiring decisions, as well as unearthing circa £410k of spare capacity.

Together with my Business Processing & HR colleagues, two other elements of the consultancy team, we have achieved to date a Net Promoter Score of 98.9% and a 4.9 average Sentiment score, which I understand sits well above the “world class” standard.

Individual Award:

• Senior Operational Excellence Manager: Darren White

AS Watson Benelux: Making Impact with Improvements

A case of customer satisfaction, employee engagement and impact!

Background

AS Watson Benelux is the company behind iconic brands Kruidvat, Trekpleister and ICI Paris XL. It’s Customer Care department services around 2 million customers through various channels for in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg. With a headcount of around 110 employees, it’s one of the larger departments at AS Watson’s headoffice, the team being spread out over thre sites in The Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey.

Prior to 2021, there were challenges arising in client response times, leading to long waiting times (>10 mins) and low answering rates (<60%). There weren’t many other insightful parameters as data was scattered and KPI’s were only partly tracked in management reports.

Whilst the team was working hard, it was unable to turn the tide. Simultaneously however, from an AS Watson perspective, the importance of good customer experience and satisfaction was becoming increasingly recognized.

Something had to change.

Activity

2021

Halfway 2021 a new phase started. Starting with a reorganization of the team into a new structure that more clearly separated teams by functions, including one team exclusively focussed on continuous improvement. Next to this, reassessment of all roles within the team’s led to clearer role definitions with demarcated responsibilities between them. A new mission; “We ensure that customers feel helped, heard and happy by our accessible service.” was crafted in cocreation with the team. New operating principles were devised committing the team to organize its work to be customer centric, as leans and simple as possible, flexible and scalable, fact based and data driven, and integrated within the rest of the organization.

One of the main objectives was to instil the Lean mindset throughout the department. Not just a change of structure but equally a change of mindset, a change of heart. This included getting used to new roles, ways of working, setting up collaborations, goals and getting focused; not only on output, but also on throughput. The next step was attempting to get data in and getting a clearer view of how the team was doing and where it was going.

2022

The team was starting to get more insights, drew up processes, and created instructions; linking them to the available data. The baseline expanded and the team was starting to determine its gaps, losses and what was influencing its goals. A first group was trained in Lean and the first results of all these new initiatives were starting to show in quick wins that were initially still  internally focused. The baseline was set on data, but also on standard procedures.

2023

More grip on processes led to more control experiencing and less sudden surprises. The first multiple year plan was created, using the OGSM-model, an import-effect matrix to determine quick wins, projects, and stakeholders which lead to an increase of steady answering rates of >80%, client satisfaction >4 (out of 5) and an average waiting time of 1:18 min. Despite these efforts however, there was still a variation when actions went wrong and the team remained reactive on many unexpected incidents. At the same time however, 11 Green belts and 1 black belt certifications were achieved, improvements were happening fatsre and faster and alignment with the complete department was forming.

The new mindset was clearly alive!

2024

The first quarter of 2024 showed consolidation of the big results, lowering variation, and also expanding collaboration within the organization. Other departments are now even actively asking for Customer Care’s data to improve cross-departmental processes.

Next to this, the team evolved from a reactive approach to looking forward. More capable of acting pro-actively, whilst data continues to analyse and determine actions. There are sessions with all employees about each own influences and engagements and each subteam has its own OGSM-framework aligned to the greater goals of the overall department, so really everybody is involved and making impact.

Impact

The largest business-impact was reaching Customer Care’s main goals: An answering rate above 80%, waiting times of less than 2 minutes and a customer satisfaction above 4 out of 5. Regardless of the results, greatest pride can be derived from the change in the people, truly the biggest change. A new mindset, a new way of working and a new approach to the work. Amazing collaborations have arisen, and impact followed.

Although we this transformation is ongoing, there truly are improvements every day and the team is able to set them up and guarantee them which is something thought impossible only 3 years ago.

GuideWell Impact Awards: Cultural transformation & Process Improvement

Background

GuideWell has undergone a massive Lean cultural transformation over the course of the last 3.5 years, that has saved millions to its members and providers, thanks to the leadership of Service Center and Enterprise Shared Service Vice-President, Gregory Szkotnicki, and Program and Community Developer, Sr. Director, Eduardo Curros, with the sponsorship and support of President & Chief Executive Officer, GuideWell and Florida Blue: Pat Geraghty and Executive Vice President, Medicare & Chief Innovation and Experience Officer: Camille Harrison.

Activity

This year alone the community has expanded by over 900 members and the program has added 4 instructors, 19 Black Belts, 30+ Brown Belt Coaches, 100 Operational Excellence Green Belts and 200+ Continuous Improvement Green Belts. With current totals of over 2,300 members, across 100 teams and growing in all 50 states and Puerto Rico; in addition to multiple GuideWell entities such as Triple-S, Florida HealthCare Plans, Diagnostic Clinic Medical Group, Emcara, and WebTPA.

Of the 2,300 members, over 700 members have a Continuous Improvement Green Belt, 250+ with Operational Excellence Green Belt, 65+ Internal Brown Belt Coaches, and 38 Black Belts, and 5 instructors. In addition to the internal benefits, the program has done external community integration with the University of North Florida Master’s in Health Administration Program and the Jacksonville Humane Society. Team Recognition:  Lean Team and Engagement Team saved millions in Cost Aversion (Soft Savings) and Cost Aversion Crystallization (Hard Savings).

Individual Award Highlights: Eduardo Curros: Lead the Black Belt Program, certified four new instructors and the certification of 38 new internal coaches. Each of the Lean Program Team: David Maltese, Maria Baar and Reba Phillips: Completed: Instructorship, Black, and Coaching Brown Belts and Certified a minimum of 40+ Green Belts. Ernest Patterson: Completed: Instructorship, Black, and Coaching Brown Belts and Certified a minimum of 15+ Green Belts and spearheaded multiple large-scale engagements.

It is our pleasure to announce that GuideWell has been awarded Seven Lean Competency Systems Impact Awards.

• Corporate Level Award: GuideWell
• Team Level Award: Lean Program and Engagement Team
  • Program Creator, Sr. Director, and Instructor: Eduardo Curros
  • Engagement Team Sr. Manager and Instructor: Ernest Patterson
  • Lean Program Team Lead and Instructor: David Maltese
  • Lean Instructor: Maria Baar
  • Lean Instructor: Reba Phillips
  • Engagement Specialist: Ashley Butts
  • Engagement Specialist: Paulette Kellawon
  • Engagement Specialist: David Goldfield
  • Engagement Specialist: John Charwinsky
• Individual Awards:
  • Program Creator, Sr. Director, and Instructor: Eduardo Curros
  • Engagement Team Sr. Manager and Instructor: Ernest Patterson
  • Lean Program Team Lead and Instructor: David Maltese
  • Lean Instructor: Maria Baar
  • Lean Instructor: Reba Phillips

IPO Team Award – Creation of a Bespoke Workplace Booking App

Background

The Intellectual Property Office is the official UK government body responsible for intellectual property rights including patent, designs, trademarks and copyright. With new working practices evolving from the pandemic our organisation needed an innovative approach to site attendance across our estate.

To support these vital changes, we introduced a bespoke workspace booking app and visitors management software, which has significantly transformed the way our organisation operates, providing a transformational return to buildings, enhancing staff autonomy, fostering collaboration, facilitating hybrid working, and eliminating external, fee-bearing desk management and visitor management software.

Activity

One of the key benefits of our app is the empowerment it provides to our people. They have gained full autonomy over their attendance, eliminating the need for coordination with their wider teams. This newfound independence has allowed our people to refocus on their core responsibilities and has greatly influenced the culture of the organisation as more and more people start returning to on-site working.

Furthermore, the introduction of the app has had a positive impact on security operations. The security team can now easily grant site access by simply viewing an iPad screen, which reduces delays at our external main entrance and reception areas. This improvement in operational efficiency contributes to a smoother and more secure building access process.

As our organisation mandates a return to the physical workspace, the app has proven invaluable in supporting all staff through its user-friendly interface, virtual tours, and overall ease of use. It plays a crucial role in facilitating the cultural shift towards increased in-building attendance.

The business area representatives have seamlessly resumed their substantive roles within their departments, contributing to the broader transformation of our organisation. The app’s integration into daily operations has become second nature for our people, fostering a culture of hybrid working, collaboration, and team building.

Impacts

The introduction of the app has allowed our organisation to develop flexible, autonomous and a hybrid ethos, embedding our values:

• Delivering for customers
• Innovating for success
• Valuing our people

Not only has the impact supported the changes, but our app has also enhanced security measures, which has resulted in significant cost savings. By mitigating the need for external software and hardware, we have avoided installation fees amounting to approximately £40,000, along with ongoing yearly administrative fees. Additionally, the reduction in staff time translates to savings of over £45,000.

The streamlined management ownership of our dedicated app team allows for prompt updates, customisation, and troubleshooting, ensuring that the app stays aligned with our organisation’s requirements and any changes in the technological landscape.  This structure ensures continuous improvement and the evolving services provided,

In summary, the cost-effectiveness, coupled with efficient management and integration with existing licensing, positions our apps as a sustainable and valuable solution for meeting the dynamic needs of our organisation, supporting transformational change to behaviours and flexibility for site attendance.