Workflow and Process Design Flashcards

A hospital's surgical services team wants to reduce case turnover time. They decide to create a standardized checklist for every room turnaround. This improvement strategy primarily reflects:

Answer: Work standardization

Work standardization establishes the best-known method for a process and ensures consistency, reducing variability and improving efficiency in surgical room turnover.

In Six Sigma process improvement, the 'Define' phase primarily accomplishes which of the following?

Answer: Establishes the project scope, goals, and customer requirements

The Define phase of DMAIC establishes the problem statement, project charter, SIPOC, and Voice of the Customer to set clear direction before analysis begins.

A process improvement team creates a spaghetti diagram of a nursing unit. The diagram MOST directly helps identify which type of waste?

Answer: Transportation and motion waste

Spaghetti diagrams trace the physical path of people or materials through a space, revealing excessive movement and transportation waste that can be reduced through layout redesign.

Which scheduling strategy best supports a 'pull' system in healthcare workflow design?

Answer: Producing services based on downstream demand and patient readiness

Pull systems initiate work only when the next step in the process is ready to receive it, reducing overproduction and inventory buildup such as patients waiting in hallways.

A Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) assigns a Risk Priority Number (RPN). What three factors are multiplied to calculate the RPN?

Answer: Severity, occurrence, and detectability

RPN = Severity × Occurrence × Detectability; this score prioritizes which failure modes require the most urgent corrective action.

When a healthcare leader applies 5S methodology to a supply room, which step involves discarding items that are not needed?

Answer: Sort

The Sort step (Seiri) involves evaluating all items and removing those that are unnecessary, expired, or rarely used to eliminate clutter.

A care team redesigns patient rounding by using a structured daily checklist that includes goals for the day. This intervention MOST directly addresses which workflow principle?

Answer: Error proofing (poka-yoke)

A structured checklist is a poka-yoke (error-proofing) device that prevents omissions by making the correct steps required and visible during execution.