Title: Analysing the benefits of Lean and Six Sigma for myocardial infarction patients: a case study of an Indian hospital

Authors: Gaurav Suman; Deo Raj Prajapati; Jeet Ram Kashyap

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to be University), Chandigarh-160012, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to be University), Chandigarh-160012, India ' Department of Cardiology, Government Medical College and Hospital, India

Abstract: Lean and Six Sigma as quality tools have proved themselves in healthcare sectors worldwide, but their use on myocardial infarction (MI) patients is minimal. The present paper shows the application of these quality initiatives to reduce door to balloon (DTB) time and door to needle (DTN) time for MI patients in a northern Indian hospital. The mean DTB time is calculated to be 349 minutes with a standard deviation of 206 minutes, whereas; mean DTN time is 113 minutes with a standard deviation of 50 minutes. The cause and effect diagram and value stream mapping tools were applied to identify various root causes and to minimise non-value-added time. The process cycle efficiency for the DTN and DTB processes is computed as 15.78% and 29.85% respectively. After implementing the proposed solutions, the duration of DTB and DTN processes has been reduced by 70.7% and 60.1% respectively.

Keywords: Six Sigma; Lean; door to balloon time; DTB; door to needle time; DTN; myocardial infarction; MI; healthcare.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSCA.2024.145398

International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, 2024 Vol.15 No.2, pp.186 - 205

Accepted: 01 Nov 2024
Published online: 31 Mar 2025 *

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