Decreasing Wait Times and Increasing Patient Satisfaction: A Lean Six Sigma Approach.

BACKGROUND: Patient satisfaction scores in the vascular interventional radiology department were low, especially related to wait times in registration and for tests/treatments, with low scores for intentions to recommend.

PURPOSE: The purpose of our quality improvement project was to decrease wait times and improve patient satisfaction using Lean Six Sigma's define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC) framework with a pre-/postintervention design.

RESULTS: There was a statistically significant decrease in wait times (P < .0019) and an increase in patient satisfaction scores in 3 areas: registration wait times (from 17 to 99 percentiles), test/treatment (from 19 to 60 percentiles), and likelihood to recommend (from 6 to 97 percentiles).

CONCLUSIONS: Lean Six Sigma was an effective framework for use in decreasing wait times and improving patient satisfaction.