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Six Sigma is a strategy developed by Motorola & implemented by General Electric (GE).
It is an approach for problem solving to help reduce variation and error rates.

This provides organizations with a tool to improve the capability of their business processes. Many healthcare institutions are using Six Sigma as a way to effectively improve their services in order to provide better healthcare to the general public. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities


The steps of Six Sigma include:

1. Define (opportunity)
2. Measure (performance)
3. Analyze (opportunity
4. Improve (Performance)
5. Control (performance)

First, Six Sigma asks that the ‘customer’ be prioritized as the first step to successfully repairing an issue. Usually, within the healthcare industry, the ‘customer’ could oftentimes be the patient, the nursing staff, the doctors, the stakeholder, the administrative staff, or the department manager. It all depends on the quality issue at hand and who will directly benefit from the changes that will be made. 

 

I think six sigma is really interesting. I know that when the hospital I work for fills out ICares or when they have any kind of errors, it is important to get to the bottom of what may have cause the errors. Managment teams need to come together and they can use this Six Sigma model to help decrease medication errors, staff errors, and improve quality of care. This model can really help change for the better.

Huber, D. H. (2009). Leadership and nursing care management. 4th edition. Saunders, Elsevier Health Sciences. Maryland Heights, MO.