Process Excellence
Bonnie Tsang, Director
Stanford Medicine Process Excellence advances the School of Medicine’s transition to a continuous improvement organization by working with teams to discover how to improve the quality and value of our administrative operations.
Our mission is to empower innovation in every person, every day.
Stanford Connected - Stars of Stanford
SoM Grants and Contracts Group
The SoM Grants and Contracts group were featured in Stanford Connected for applying the Lean Processes to reduce grant-award processing. Click here to read the full story.
Lean Launch
Faculty Comp’s Lean Launch focused on reduction of delays and errors involved in processing changes for faculty who have a Palo Alto VA appointment. These changes include actions for hires, promotions, sabbaticals and other leave types; retirement and 8th’s changes. These actions are all complex due to the need to maintain the parity balance of Stanford salary with often-changing VAPAHCS salary. At the Lean Launch the team mapped out the current process steps for these faculty changes, and then invited colleagues from five departments and the University Benefits team to provide feedback. As a result, several education projects to help department and divisions understand the process, as well as required information have been identified for the team’s 30, 60 and 90 day goals.
60-Day Report-out
Process Excellence had a busy month of Lean launches and report-outs. We were able to attend the Department of Surgery’s 60-day report-out where we saw their famous viz board that has received quite a lot of attention. They are on track to hitting their goals, and have come to the realization that working as a group has not only been effortless, but also rewarding, as everyone has benefited from these changes for on-boarding. We are excited to see their metrics next month.
Coming up
Mar 1 - Controller's Group 90-day Report-out
Mar 8 - Emergency Medicines 90-day Report-out
Mar 21 - Stanford Medicine Lean Leadership Cohort- session 2
Mar 22 - Faculty Compensations 30-day Report-out
Interested in a Launch?
I’m interested in using the launch process to help my team solve a problem.
Step 1: Are you a member of the Stanford School of Medicine?
Step 2: Start with a problem facing your team. Typically, this would be an area in where there is a gap between expectations and results.
Step 3: Discuss with your manager or leader, and contact us to determine if this would be a fit for a launch—usually a three-day event that focuses your team and customers on targeted improvements.
Step 4: We will work with your Team Leads/Managers to produce a scope document that sets goals aimed at significantly reducing your gap. The launch would then be scheduled, team members would be named, and facilitators and resources would be secured.
Step 5: The launch itself is attended by your team and a team leader; all participants collaboratively map the current and desired/future processes, along with issues and ideas for improvement. The final day includes a report out to your sponsors.
Step 6: After the launch, there are 30, 60, and 90-day report outs.