Defective PPE Received and Distributed

I'm aware of a number of Irish companies who have contacted the HSE with offers of everything from PPE to Respirators and have had no response at all. Some of those same companies are now supplying said equipment to the USA and Italy.

If anybody thinks the Health Service (Hospitals, HSE, Dept. of Health) have the skills and mindset to deal with this properly they are deluding themselves.

I'm waiting for the usual deflection; blame the politicians, blame lack of resources etc. As long as that happens it'll be a case of rinse and repeat.
 
What are the chances of the HSE, its process designers or product and service suppliers getting to Six Sigma standards of excellence. For those unfamiliar with it, the widely accepted definition of a Six Sigma process is a process that produces 3.4 Defective Parts (or non-conforming outcomes) per Million Opportunities or DPMO.

Six Sigma aims to deliver yields of 99.99966% unlike the latest HSE debacle with the PPE which we are told produced a yield of 65%, no where near good enough for a modern healthcare organisation. Excuses like the HSE and its employees are operating under pressure is not a reason for failure to deliver excellence, it is merely a very poor excuse. Doing routine work in a normal environment is just that, routine, stress free, repetitive, day-to-day operations. Operating to a standard of excellence in a non-routine environment is called managing.

Any chance any of their director of this, manager of that, co-ordinator of something amorphous and meaningless that can't be measured will ever get to sigma seven levels of delivery? Based on their own performance measures using the PPE numbers their DPMO is somewhere between 691,462 and 308,538; Sigma Six would be 3.4 and sigma seven 0.019.

Im sorry what? How familiar are you with six sigma exactly? This is a rant dressed up to sound "sciency".

It is exactly routine normal work/production where 6 sigma is applied. Ramping up new production lines and producing new parts and shipping them around the world within a few weeks gives literally no time to implement the process controls and systems that produce things like six sigma production. Not to mention, the production lines were producing to a certain spec, this spec differed to what the HSE wanted, this is not a PPM type of issue...
 
I'm a fan of using LEAN in people heavy organisations. Six Sigma works when you are making razor blades or cans of beans or disc drives where it's tens of millions of the same thing in an automated process.
LEAN is a much better set of tools for something like a hospital or the management structure of the HSE.
 
Six Sigma is in use in healthcare organisations world-wide and indeed in supply-chain process and delivered product quality improvement. Whether that's LEAN Six Sigma or Six Sigma I think is a decent topic for debate
Im sorry what?
No need to apologise. Although I know it has it's critics in very large organisation and in certain types of operations, the focus on processes and outcomes is relevant here.
 
Six Sigma is in use in healthcare organisations world-wide and indeed in supply-chain process and delivered product quality improvement. Whether that's LEAN Six Sigma or Six Sigma I think is a decent topic for debate
No need to apologise. Although I know it has it's critics in very large organisation and in certain types of operations, the focus on processes and outcomes is relevant here.
Its not, as I detailed in my comment. Its, at best, a poor understanding of how it would apply in this case. At worst, its an attempt to spread misinformation
 
Its not, as I detailed in my comment. Its, at best, a poor understanding of how it would apply in this case. At worst, its an attempt to spread misinformation
It is used. Here's a good article on the topic, though I suspect that you are talking about the specifics of the recent shipment of PPE and mathepac is talking about our healthcare industry generally.

If you want to see chaotic and costly healthcare spend a few hours in Naas Hospital A&E. Fawlty Towers is alive and well.
 
It is used. Here's a good article on the topic, though I suspect that you are talking about the specifics of the recent shipment of PPE and mathepac is talking about our healthcare industry generally.

If you want to see chaotic and costly healthcare spend a few hours in Naas Hospital A&E. Fawlty Towers is alive and well.
Oh ya, lean, six sigma has applications in healthcare undoubtedly. Mathepac was applying things to this order of PPE that make no sense though.
 
Oh ya, lean, six sigma has applications in healthcare undoubtedly. Mathepac was applying things to this order of PPE that make no sense though.
I think he was talking about the Health Service in general. That's certainly what I took from his comments.
 
We spend €21 billion a year on healthcare in Ireland, 12% of our GNI. A half decent Six Sigma/LEAN programme would, in my opinion, save thousands of lives and billions of Euro. It may require changes in work practices, less gravy for doctors and nurses (but especially consultants) and an overall reduction in headcount so there is zero chance of it happening. As long as the public healthcare sector is run primarily for the benefit of those who work in it rather than the public we'll continue to waste billions and people will continue to die needlessly.
This crisis has given us a glimpse of what is possible but I just can't see anything changing; we'll have the same vested interests cynically playing the same emotive soundbites which will be lapped up by the same twits on RTE and elsewhere and the unspoken rule that we don't question or criticise "front line wurkers" will be again cast in stone.
 
Well done Avalon aircraft leasing who donated the use of an aircraft to bring 40 ventilators, 1m pairs of gloves, goggles and other ICU PPE from Chine. The shipment has all been quality checked at source, in advance of the HSE's poor attempt at procuring similar equipment, excluding ventilators. (RTE News)
 
Cork fabric company to alter some of HSE's shipment of personal protective equipment to make it suitable for use...
Sterile PPE gets unboxed and worked on in a non-sterile environment, repackaged and unboxed again to be used in a sterile environment. Or will all the unboxing, re-work and repackaging be done in a certified clean-room or sterile environment by people who are free of the virus? Great idea but has anyone thought this through any more carefully than they did the initial mess-up?
 
We spend €21 billion a year on healthcare in Ireland, 12% of our GNI. A half decent Six Sigma/LEAN programme would, in my opinion, save thousands of lives and billions of Euro.

How do you know that LEAN/Six Sigma programmes are not implemented in the Irish health service?
 
Paul Reid:

Revised specification of masks received and being tested. Order 2 to begin arriving on 17th April. HSE trying to bring forward arrival of Order 3.

Gowns are a significant issue. They will be tight on them in some places. Prioritisation use will be set out.
 
How do you know that LEAN/Six Sigma programmes are not implemented in the Irish health service?
There are LEAN programmes within the health service and some have been very successful but they are local and ad hoc and completely dependent on whether the local Union brethren allow them to happen.
 
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