Anyone who has been to an emergency room knows how slow it can be. According to Press Ganey, length of stay is still four hours, unchanged for a decade. Some ERs, however, are turning discharged patients in as little as 38 minutes and admitted patients in 90 minutes.

And ithe advanced technology for Lean are Post-it Notes. One hospital lab I worked with reduced sample travel by over 50% and delays by a third, and it only took a couple of hours to figure out how to do it.

One nursing unit figured out how to redesign the workspace to reduce nurse travel by over 50%. Again in less than an hour.

The power laws of speed are:
3-57 rule: employees are only working on the patient for 3 minutes out of very hour.
15-2-20 rule: Every 15 minute reduction in delay doubles productivity and increases profits by 20%.
3-by-2 rule: This enables a hospital to grow three times faster than its competition and double profits. (About half of all hospitals are in financial trouble.)

To learn more, read Lean Six Sigma for Hospital (McGraw-Hill 2011).