Piedmont Newnan Hospital has been selected as a winner of the 2008 VHA Inc. Georgia Regional Leadership Awards in the Operational Excellence category for their improvements in the operating room that increased patient care and improved patient and physician satisfaction. 

“We are thrilled to be recognized by VHA Georgia for our LEAN initiative in the operating room,” said Michael Bass, president and CEO of PNH.  “The LEAN project was initiated in November 2007 in order to improve on our operating room’s service and quality, and it feels great to be recognized for our efforts.” 

In their work towards improving Piedmont Newnan Hospital’s operational excellence to enhance patient services, PNH identified the need to enhance efficiency in several ways including increasing the utilization of operating rooms by 10 percent and reducing turnaround time.  With these goals in mind, PNH, in conjunction with Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute applied LEAN, a set of tools widely used in manufacturing to help identify and steadily eliminate waste from an organization’s operations, to their operating room processes. 

A cross-functional team of PNH employees identified three rapid process improvement areas: case cart and instrument process flow, standardization of the supply area, operating rooms and central sterile, and room turnaround and specialty team concept.  As a result of the LEAN project, PNH successfully achieved decreased operating room turnaround times and continues to increase operating room utilization.

 “These awards exemplify the efforts that are underway across the state to improve the quality health care being delivered to Georgians.  Instead of reinventing the wheel, our members are learning from each others’ successes and failures, and by recognizing these few hospitals, we hope to point others in the right direction,” said Richard T. Howerton, III, FACHE, president and chief executive officer of VHA’s regional office in Atlanta. 

VHA Georgia, part of VHA Inc., the national health care alliance, recognized 10 Georgia hospitals for improving their supply chain performance, clinical care, operational efficiency and community benefit performance. Each year VHA Georgia, through its annual VHA Georgia Regional Leadership Awards and Expo, honors its member organizations that have exhibited exceptional and innovative improvements.  VHA Georgia selects a panel of peers to blindly review the award entries.  This year the organization awarded 12 awards, three in each category, out of 51 applications. 

 PNH and Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute will present their winning project at the VHA Regional Leadership Expo on Oct. 15, 2008 at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta. The event brings together healthcare organizations from across the state to network and learn from each other in order  to become the state’s and the nation’s best performers.  For more information about VHA, visit www.vha.com.  For more information on PNH, visit www.piedmontnewnan.org.

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