The paramedic crew at Western Cape Government Emergency Medical Services (EMS) serve some of the toughest areas in Cape Town. They wanted to rethink the way they work by streamlining how they serve patients and free up resources using a process map.
They are learning to think through the issues in a structured way, following cycles of PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) experiments. They aim to bring self-managing squads to bring about autonomy to people on the ground. Squads is a test concept and also and acronym for their value drivers: Staff morale, Quality, User experience, Accountability, Delivery, Safety.
They are learning to tune in to the wastes in their daily work, such as:
- Time wasted while setting up a vehicle for the day and the way equipment is laid out.
- Waiting times affected by incorrect resources dispatched to the scene.
- Squads are experimenting with reducing set-up time by picking staff up from home and keeping the vehicle running
- Looking at eliminating unnecessary work returning to base to complete a checklist that is actually available electronically.
- They can’t locate where the patient is on the map in good time, and if the patient address is unclear, the crew spends critical time searching for the incident.
Read more details in the entire article at https://planet-lean.com/lean-healthcare-emergency-services/