Creato and Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns have entered into an agreement whereby Creato will assist Sharp to examine a range of performance issues on the perioperative services unit of the hospital. The engagement is the first for Creato within the Sharp Healthcare System, one of San Diego’s largest healthcare delivery systems.
The agreement is unique in that it is a result of a partnership formed with NTD Architecture, a San Diego-based firm with specialization in hospital design. NTD designed and upgraded most of the Sharp Mary Birch campus over a 20-year working relationship between the two organizations.
As part of this new agreement, Creato will assess the current state of operations and provide recommendations for new design that will improve patient flow and increase staff, provider and patient satisfaction with the physical environment. NTD will then integrate design recommendations into a proposed physical restructuring of the existing facility. The close collaboration between Creato and NTD in creating an ideal environment is one of the first times that Lean Six Sigma principles become the driving force for architectural design.
“Over the past 10 years we’ve been making the argument that Six Sigma principles should inform architectural design, but far too often we are brought in after the walls go up,” notes Ian R. Lazarus, a Creato principal. “It’s a testament to the vision of Sharp management that they required this unique collaboration at the outset of this engagement.”
“Demonstrating a commitment to Six Sigma levels of quality is not a part time endeavor,” adds Trisha Khaleghi, CEO of Sharp Mary Birch. “As we look to the future, we recognize the need to apply this discipline not only to improve existing processes, but to build new capacity as well.”
About Creato: Creato Performance Solutions has been providing technologies and training to support corporate performance improvement for over 20 years. Today, Creato is a leading provider in the U.S. of Lean and Six Sigma deployment, and Project Portfolio Management products including the COMPASS® Quality Management System. Their combined classroom and online training programs are available a variety of other channel partners across the U.S. A recent study of 150 projects completed by Creato clients over the past 10 years revealed an average return on investment of 7:1.