CHL Workflow and Process Design 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: 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:
- Six Sigma DMAIC
- Work standardization (Correct answer)
- Process benchmarking
- Failure mode and effects analysis
Correct 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.
Question 2: In Six Sigma process improvement, the 'Define' phase primarily accomplishes which of the following?
- Identifies root causes using statistical tools
- Establishes the project scope, goals, and customer requirements (Correct answer)
- Implements and validates the solution
- Monitors the process to sustain gains
Correct 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.
Question 3: A process improvement team creates a spaghetti diagram of a nursing unit. The diagram MOST directly helps identify which type of waste?
- Overproduction
- Transportation and motion waste (Correct answer)
- Waiting
- Defects
Correct 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.
Question 4: Which scheduling strategy best supports a 'pull' system in healthcare workflow design?
- Block scheduling based on historical averages
- Producing services based on downstream demand and patient readiness (Correct answer)
- Scheduling maximum capacity to minimize idle staff
- Stacking appointments at peak times to maximize revenue
Correct 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.
Question 5: A Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) assigns a Risk Priority Number (RPN). What three factors are multiplied to calculate the RPN?
- Frequency, severity, and cost
- Severity, occurrence, and detectability (Correct answer)
- Probability, impact, and urgency
- Likelihood, harm, and preventability
Correct answer: Severity, occurrence, and detectability
RPN = Severity × Occurrence × Detectability; this score prioritizes which failure modes require the most urgent corrective action.
Question 6: When a healthcare leader applies 5S methodology to a supply room, which step involves discarding items that are not needed?
- Set in order
- Shine
- Sort (Correct answer)
- Standardize
Correct answer: Sort
The Sort step (Seiri) involves evaluating all items and removing those that are unnecessary, expired, or rarely used to eliminate clutter.
Question 7: 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?
- Error proofing (poka-yoke) (Correct answer)
- Voice of the Customer
- Cycle time reduction
- Load leveling
Correct 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.
CHL Workflow and Process Design 3
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: