Improvement of strategy to manage the specimen reception process Using Lean Six Sigma Methods: Clinical Laboratory of Bamrasnaradura infectious disease institute

Abstract

The epidemic of serious emerging and re-emerging infectious disease has been a concerning problem in this present day and laboratory analysis is a way to diagnose, prevent, and control the spreading of the disease. The process of laboratory analysis can be identified into 3 steps which consist of pre-analytical, analytical, and post-analytical process. Most risks and errors can be frequently found in the pre-analytical step and affect quality improvement, result reporting, turn-around time, and customer satisfaction. Therefore, the objective of this study aims to improve the quality of the laboratory process by applying ‘Lean thinking’ and ‘Six Sigma’ and employing the ‘Define Measure Analyze Improve Control (DMAIC)’ strategy to manage the specimen reception process. The DMAIC strategy can identify the cause of risks and errors. This study retrieved the data of quality assessment by employing Six Sigma for a year. The data showed that risks and errors in the pre-analytical process were caused by creating laboratory requests into a hospital information system, patient identification, specimen identification, specimen collection, specimen transportation, and lab communication. This process gave a result of the average six sigma level at 2.63. After employing Lean thinking and six sigma to improve the process, identify the causes of the problems, and plan and control the operation, it can be found that the average six sigma level from the pre-analytical process increased to 4.09. Thus, this study showed that the application of Lean thinking and Six Sigma can help develop the serious infectious specimen reception process and increase the efficiency of the laboratory at Bamrasnaradura infectious disease institute.