Speaker 1: Welcome to the Practical Lean Six Sigma Applications in Healthcare course offered by SimplyLearn. Hi, my name is Patrick Pressoir and I'll be your instructor for this course. I'm a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with over 15 years of hands-on experience in continuous improvement methodologies in both the public and private sectors, out of which 6 years have been in the healthcare domain. I have completed numerous projects resulting in increased efficiencies and improved service quality and have taught, coached, and mentored numerous practitioners along the way. Today, I'll be teaching you to apply Lean Six Sigma methodologies and tools in a healthcare setting. As you already know, there is little room for error when it comes to healthcare. Simple mistakes can impact hundreds of people and, worse yet, can lead to fatalities. According to the Journal of Healthcare Finance, medical errors cost the U.S. over $19.5 billion in 2008. The Institute of Medicine's 1998 Breakthrough Report to Error is Human estimated there were 98,000 preventable deaths that year due to medical errors. In 2008, that figure had ballooned to 200,000 deaths a year. That's 548 deaths a day, or 23 deaths an hour. Almost every two minutes, somebody in the U.S. dies because of a medical error. Besides the fact that continuous process improvement can decrease waste, improve productivity, and also increase effectiveness and efficiencies in healthcare, or any other industry for that matter, Lean Six Sigma can go a long way in reducing these devastating preventable deaths. A healthcare practitioner who understands how to use the tools and methodologies to systematically resolve problems and improve the quality of care is well positioned to become a highly valued asset to their organization. They not only prevent deaths, but also improve the quality of patient care and reduce operating costs. There are plenty of opportunities for improvement in healthcare. Just take a look at the news headlines on any given day to get an idea of how many healthcare improvement opportunities there are. In this course, we'll go through a sample project that takes you through the entire process of conducting an improvement project starting with identifying the problem, defining the project, measuring and analyzing the data in order to determine the vital few factors that will lead to the greatest improvement. Then we will learn how to determine and implement a solution successfully in the long term. In addition to the introduction and concluding modules, this course is divided into six main modules, each covering a different phase of the Lean Six Sigma methodology. It is highly recommended that you follow the modules in the order that they are presented, as this is how a typical project will be conducted. At the end of this course, you can expect to have a practical understanding of how to use the methodology and some of the tools to conduct your own improvement project in a healthcare setting. Please keep in mind that this course is in no way meant to replace actual Lean Six Sigma certification courses, which cover all the tools you can have in your improvement arsenal. The objective of this course is to demonstrate through the use of a relevant sample project how to apply the methodology and use some of those tools. A key takeaway is to realize that you don't need to use every tool available to you on every project. That would be the same as using a saw, hammer, pliers, and drill for every home improvement project. It just doesn't work that way. That being said, as you gain experience with improvement projects, you will find that some tools are used more often than others. The sample project in this course highlights some of those tools. So without further ado, on behalf of SimplyLearn, I wish you good luck for the course. Welcome, and let's get started.