Issue link: https://industrialengineer.epubxp.com/i/920036
22 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine W health systems ISEs belong in healthcare design, construction By Amanda Mewborn While I love working in the healthcare facility design and construction space, I recognize that it's not a common choice for industrial and systems engineers. However, it should be. Working in this space allows the opportunity to re- design workflow and plan the design of facilities so that they are flexible for the future. It is rewarding to make things better for patients, visitors, staff, physi- cians and even the communities where we serve. There are so many more op- portunities for industrial and systems engineers to get involved – and plenty of areas where our skills already are making a difference. For example, Cook Children's hospital in Texas teamed with the architecture firm Boulder Associ- ates to use a common lean tech- nique, 3P, to design a neighborhood clinic. Instead of 3P being produc- tion preparation process, they modified it to the service industry to be the people preparation process. They did an experiment, designing one center without 3P and another with 3P. In the design of the center using 3P, clinicians built their environment using cardboard in a warehouse. Every detail was built, including the glove boxes and sharps boxes. The other center was de- signed in a traditional way, reviewing plans on paper. The project using 3P had many ben- efits: 12.5 percent reduction in design hours, no impact to construction cost, one week return on investment, 35 percent reduction in supply order fre- quency, 19 percent higher patient room utilization, 15 percent reduction in cir- culation square footage and higher pa- tient satisfaction scores. Could you help healthcare in applying 3P, perhaps in de- signing space or in some other fashion? Akron Children's hospital recently completed a building expansion. This Ohio hospital required new people to go through a lean boot camp before joining the project team. The three-day train- ing course explained how clinical work- flow should work in the new environ- ment and how the team designing and constructing the building likes to work. In addition, the team used lean tools to speed the design process, including de- veloping current state and future state process maps to design workflow first. Then, the architecture was designed by involving front-line workers in de- veloping cardboard prototypes of the environment. Simulation scenarios were then created and executed to test the environment. This rapid prototyping saved millions of dollars, improved the design, reduced change orders during construction and engaged a team that enjoyed working together. Five years ago, Swedish Issaquah opened a new greenfield facility in Washington. A review of this new physician practice and hospital campus showed how important one innovation was: The facility standardized all patient rooms, regardless of acuity level. This enabled the hospital to move units dur- ing construction without missing a beat. This also has allowed immense flex- ibility as the health system moved ser- vice lines from one campus to another. One of the mechanical engineers in- volved explained that the building is more sustainable and uses less energy. The four goals of this campus were: High sustainability, support the community, provide efficiency plus flexibility and target clinical excellence. An industrial and systems engi- neer would be well-positioned to assist in all those goals, especially efficiency and flexibility. But in many of these cases, few if any ISEs are involved. Since healthcare systems engineers are all about improving healthcare workflow, patient experience and clini- cal outcomes, the opportunity for our field to design facilities to support those improvements is unlimited. Join me in the healthcare design and construction industry and make a big difference in the world. Ama da Mewbor s a dustrial e gi eer, registere urse a d lea lack belt who works as executive director for project ma ageme t at Piedmo t Healthcare. She ca e reached at ama da.mewbor @piedmo .org. The opportunity for our field to design facilities to support those improvements is unlimited.