Cars get routine maintenance, and repairs when they break. People get routine check-ups, and treatment when they’re sick.
So are there lessons a hospital operator can learn from an auto giant?
WellStar Health System aims to find out through a partnership with General Motors in which they swap tips on processes and communication — whether they involve moving car parts along assembly lines or ensuring patients are prepped for surgery on time.
The two industries have a lot more in common that people might think, said Dennis Pastor, executive director of performance excellence at Marietta-based WellStar, which operates five hospitals in north metro Atlanta.
“Everything comes down to process,” Pastor said. “In health care, the complexities are so great, we need to learn everywhere we can.”
The partnership formed about three years ago and has grown since. GM engineers have visited WellStar’s facilities, while doctors have toured assembly plants.
Most recently, the auto manufacturer donated a simulated assembly line that WellStar uses to help employees from doctors and nurses to administrators improve teamwork and communication. Workers each have a role in constructing metal carts, including checking for defects before moving the finished product through. Roughly 600 people have gone through the GM work simulation so far.
If people don’t step up and ask for help when they need it, defects get created and passed along, Pastor said.
Translated into a hospital environment those errors, such as failing to get consent forms signed before surgeries, can have a domino effect — blocking other departments from moving patients through. If patients have to wait too long in the emergency department, they might just leave without being seen, Pastor said.
“If you identify bottlenecks, you can always get better,” said Tim Herrick, GM’s executive chief engineer for crossovers.
The training has made employees much more aware of colleagues who depend on their services to do their own jobs, said Deborah Smiler, coordinator for accreditation and performance improvement at WellStar’s Windy Hill Hospital in Marietta.
When a dietary aid, whose job is to ask patients about meal preferences, saw a patient’s leg falling out of the bed, she stopped, stayed with the patient, called for help and prevented the patient from hitting the floor, Smiler said.
“We have people stepping outside of their defined job…to step out and speak up,” she said.
WellStar has also adopted a system from GM that uses brightly-colored Legos on large white boards to help employees visualize and track physician payments, quality measures, staffing and other elements key to running a lean, profitable health care company.
Earlier this month, WellStar began piloting a new 3-D modeling application for tablets and smartphones based on the Legos concept that allows the health system to visually track the progress of patient care and identify areas that need improvement.
“It’s agile. It’s flexible,” Pastor said. “It’s not super expensive.”
WellStar and GM already have a patent approved for the system in the United States and have patent applications pending in Germany and China.
