Quality in the Hospital Laboratory Process?

By Pascal Dennis

“We’re sorry…” CEO Toronto Hospital for Sick Children

Terrible story, folks, out of the Hospital for Sick Children. Sick Kids apologizes for drug-test failings.

Flaws in the Motherisk laboratory’s hair-strand drug and alcohol testing process might have caused some parents to lose custody of their children. Other parents might face unjust criminal convictions.

Children’s Aid Societies use the results of such tests to make decisions on custody and so on. After months of denial and deflection, the hospital has finally accepted responsibility and apologized.

Cold comfort to the victims, though. How many lives have been damaged?

As always, there are learning points. What are possible causes of this laboratory disasters?

Layout?

• Poor overall layouts result in chaotic work pathways, which increase contamination risk
• Work Area Layout – are all the items technicians needs to do their work within easy reach, or do they have hunt and peck?

5S & Visual Management

• Are reagents, equipment, slides and the rest easy to find? Is it easy to tell, ‘what is it?’, ‘where is it?’ and ‘how many?’

All of these increase contamination risk.

Standardized Work?

• Are there simple, visual standards for the lab’s core ‘recipes’?
• Are standards checked and updated regularly, and ‘owned’ by team members?

Team Member Training Process?

• Are lab team members trained in core standards using robust methods (e.g. TWI)?
• Are team members cross-trained to build capability and ensure requisite skills are in abundance

Daily Accountability?

• Does the hospital’s management system include daily stand up meetings in front of team boards wherein team members are encouraged to make problems visible?

Team Member Involvement and Problem Solving?

• Are team members trained in fundamentals like standardized work, visual management, and problem solving?
• Do leaders at all levels actively support total involvement and daily problem solving?
• Does the Human Resources system support and promote such leaders?

Hard questions, all.

My heart goes out to the victims.

Best regards,

Pascal

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What's Holding Back Human Resources? Part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last time I talked about the fine Jack & Suzie Welch op-ed piece on the travails of HR.

HR should be as important as Finance, but rarely is. HR leaders should have a place in the inner sanctum of decision-makers, but rarely do.

Here are some more thoughts on why…

HR leaders often lack solid Operations backgrounds. In fact, many organizations staff senior HR leadership positions with people who don’t know how to run a line of business.

It’s akin to the Boston Red Sox staffing their Player Development office with people who’ve never played baseball.

To be sure, good baseball teams use statisticians and other specialists, and all their PD staff needn’t be brilliant ball players.

But most of them have played the game. They understand what makes a great pitcher or catcher or lead-off hitter.

The countermeasure seems clear: foster good job rotation, make sure senior leaders have run a range of functions, including HR.

Caveat: please avoid the ‘get your ticket punched’ approach that’s proven to be such a failure.

You know what I mean. “High potential candidates” are put through a merry-go-round of 2 to 3 year assignments to ‘broaden them’.

Unfortunately, the ‘high potentials’ are graded on the number of times their ticket has been punched – and not on whether or not they left a footprint.

Result: hollowed up management systems, unstable processes, near misses and catastrophic direct hits all over the place.

In summary, by all means cross-train senior leaders, especially those who may end of running HR.

But assess their performance on the 4 M foot-print they leave behind – Manpower, Methods, Machinery and Material systems.

Best regards,

Pascal

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What's Holding Back Human Resources? Part 1

By Pascal Dennis

Another splendid Jack & Suzie Welch op-ed piece – this one on the travails of HR.

As always, their insight is penetrating & unflinching.

HR should be as important as Finance, but rarely is. HR leaders should have a place in the inner sanctum of decision-makers, but rarely do.

Indeed, a baseball analogy comes to mind: HR in a large organization should be akin to, say, the Boston Red Sox Player Development function.

Instead, more often than not, HR activities devolve into the ‘cloak & dagger society’ or health & happiness sideshow Jack describes.

So here’s a question for y’all:

In your experience, what’s holding HR back? Why can’t it play the role Jack the Great, and your humble correspondent would like to see it play?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Here are a few of mine, such as they are.

Too often, HR leaders are process illiterate – they can’t see processes, let alone improve them.

Thus, HR processes become opaque, bureaucratic & ineffective. (Chapter 12 of The Remedy provides a fictional account of one such HR group.)

Secondly, management fundamentals such as Value & Waste consciousness, visual management, standardized work, team huddles and the like are often lacking.

The anaesthetizing fog of Big Company Disease rolls and all bets are off.

HR’s customer groups sense it, and stay away in droves.

Unscrupulous HR leaders are then drawn by the Dark Arts such as favoritism, rumor-mongering and other forms of malevolent politics.

Well-meaning HR leaders are drawn to health & happiness activities, but know deep down, that they’re barely scratching the surface.

More to come.

Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts too.

Best,

Pascal

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