The Lean movement began as a management philosophy for manufacturing companies to increase consistency, remove unnecessary steps, and eliminate waste. Although Lean was originally intended to improve industrialized product development, it is now heavily applied to service industries and healthcare, including surgical pathology labs. The goal of implementing Lean practices in a lab is to make significant cuts in expenses while improving patient safety and the satisfaction of referring physicians. This is done by creating efficiency that drives quicker and higher quality outcomes.
Often times, companies believe that investing in a new technology will lead to vast efficiency improvement. The reality is that unless carefully planned and incorporated into a LEAN process, the results can be a mixed bag. In this blog I will attempt to point out a few of the many things that should be considered when implementing speech recognition based reporting solutions as part of a Lean laboratory strategy.