The LCS Impact Awards

Lean Programme Sustainability

Background

GuideWell is a mutual insurance holding company based in Florida, primarily focused on health insurance. GuideWell companies include: Florida Blue, GuideWell Health (a healthcare delivery company), GuideWell Connect (a healthcare consumer marketing company) and GuideWell Source (an administrative and claims processing company for state and federal healthcare programmes).

Its mission is to help people and communities achieve better health, and it is at the forefront of the evolution of health care, forging ahead by innovating, collaborating and advocating for better health care. GuideWell became LCS accredited in 2020.

Activity

2020 saw the development and implementation of the lean architecture that has allowed it to rapidly lay the foundations for a sustainable CI culture, An extensive lean program included the introduction of a Green Belt course, which delivered 6 classes for the year. The program value was formalised and Lean certified staff were in 23 of 127 departments of the business and a community of practice for 200 staff was established, with 73 Certified Green Belts.

In 2021, the Green Belt course was expanded to 9 classes a year and Lean leadership seminars were offered 3 times in the year for all areas of the company, focussing on how to manage lean resources. A Brown Belt Program was developed to create 20 internal coaches a year, deploying in November and a Black Belt program with a selection process was developed to accept 20 candidates, also starting in November. A ‘Lunch and Learn’ round table seminar developed for deployment in December and the first annual Corporate Lean Awards event took place on December 16th.

The executive leadership has requested an expansion of the programme in 2022 Plans for 2022, which includes making Green Belt CI certification a requirement for five business areas and Green Belt OpEx certification a requirement for three additional business areas

Impact

GuideWell’s Lean Programme that has created real impact in a comparatively short period of time and lean is beginning to be seen as part of the company’s ethos. The creation of an enthused community of practitioners has been a key ingredient to building momentum and making it sustainable.

Several factors have contributed to this, including the entire lean training programme and especially the Green Belt course and the many certifications it has delivered, plus a range of communication mechanisms, such as leadership seminars, lunch and learn sessions and the awards event.

The programme has positive senior management buy-in – commonly quoted as the most important factor in creating sustainable lean success – and importantly, there is a shared understanding of what represents value, especially in terms of hard savings and cost aversions, and a widely understood and applied method to identify that value, with improvement projects having formal management sponsorship and therefore appropriate strategic alignment.

Key highlights:

• $2.3 Million in cost aversion was generated by certified Green Belt in 2020
• Program was expanded based on request from executive leadership
• Lean certified staff were in 58 of 127 departments of the business
• Community of practice of over 850 members of the company
• 277 Certified Green Belts (as of date 12/31/22)
• 12.1 Million in cost aversion was generated by certified Green Belt for 2021