In healthcare today, having to do more with less goes with the territory. Volumes are increasing five to ten percent every year, regulatory and administrative burdens are becoming more restrictive, and wait times are rising. Already stretched providers struggle to keep up, even as healthcare consumes a growing chunk of the provinces' budgets.

These symptoms had been all too familiar at the pathology department of Grand River Hospital. For years, they faced complaints over long wait times, backlogs of work, and frustrated staff. "All in all it was a pretty chaotic environment, and highly stressful," says Vince D'Mello, Integrated Laboratory Administrative Director at Grand River and St Mary's General Hospital. "We never seemed to be getting out of the circle of events."

The lab was under-staffed, but D'Mello, who had prior experience with lean, knew that the root of their troubles lay deeper than that. Their department was trapped in a siloed environment where departments - the pathology lab, nursing, technical support, etc. - were self-contained and independent from one another. This caused several critical problems; work cells were blaming each other when something went wrong; departments were competing for resources; and staff efforts were conflicting with one another.

A fundamentally different approach was needed - one that could break down these barriers and get everybody working together with the patients' interests in mind. D'Mello got approval to introduce lean to the department, and through a competitive process opted to bring in Lean Advisors as consultants.

The results speak for themselves. Before implementing the supermarket model, Grand River had a backlog of roughly 14 days. Six weeks after implementing lean, it dropped to two days.

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