Due in Week 2: A two-page summary describing key points, including the initial problem, TQM activities, findings, and recommendations.

Scenario Summary:

In a large healthcare integrated delivery system (IDS), management uses a centralized "Call Center" for their 3 million patients on the Eastern Seaboard. From this Call Center, patients often call in and request to speak to the advice nurse (although they have their own telephone number listed), talk with the pharmacy, and ask to speak to the billing office or request an appointment. The Call Center is open 24 hours each day, 7 days a week and 365 days of the year. It has 30 employees, six of which are scheduled to work on each shift.

Over the last 6 months there have been multiple complaints from patients citing, that they were put on hold, the phone was not answered quickly enough, and they often had to call back. Although it can't be directly attributed to this service, there has been an increase in emergency room visits and one sentinel event that physicians felt could have been avoided had the patient's phone call been triaged appropriately prior to the emergency room visit. These issues have been brought to the attention of the regional CEO and the board of directors. Because the IDS are planning on a patient recruitment campaign within the next 6 months, the board of directors has authorized investigation of the problem(s). The CEO has authorized the money and time for this investigation.

The CEO recruited a supervisor for this 8 week project and the supervisor has been allocated a 4-member multi-disciplinary team to drill down to the cause and effect of this poor publicity. A written report is to be provided to the board of directors within 8 weeks. The team has been authorized to use the concepts and tools of Total Quality Management (TQM).

Key Players in this scenario (review their statements)

Peter Sullivan -Current Supervisor of the Call Center

"I belief we've got insufficient staff and too many patient calls. I can't see how this TQM process is going to make any difference. Furthermore, I don't understand what it does for this issue. I have worked here 6 years and still have the same number of staff. I think the problem is insufficient staff. Just give me additional people."

Sally Niven - college grad student currently nursing intern at the IDS (daughter of board member)

"I worked in this Call Center for a week as part of my internship, and I noticed breaks were not organized, and some individuals were spending too much time on the phone with patients. I think we need a voice mail system so staff can deal with the message not the person - it is more efficient. Patients just need to get to the point. "

Suzie Que - Marketing specialist and new to the IDS

Currently working on the Patient Recruitment Campaign and recently graduated with an MBA.

"As I see it, I am not ready to discuss solutions to the problem I believe we should take a TQM approach and plot the current status and all the processes. I'm familiar with the Six Sigma concept, so from my perspective the ability to collect, analyze, and use data is a vital component of a successful performance improvement process. Healthcare organizations that don't devote enough attention to data collection may only experience marginal success in their process improvement."

Willie Brown - retired X-Ray technician and volunteer at the IDS

"I am all for learning something new, although I have never heard of Six Sigma. In my day I just dealt with one patient every 15 or 20 minutes depending on the procedure. Let me know what I need to do on this project, and I am on board. I hope it isn't too complicated?"

Your Role

For the You Decide Activity you are asked to take on the role of the supervisor. As supervisor you will be working with the 4-member team and leading them through the TQM process. You will be responsible for coordinating all tasks assigned to the team members and presenting all data necessary in the written report to the Board of Directors.