A Method to Improve a Job Process at a Hospital Using the 'Unit Process Flow Chart'

摘要

The development of methods to improve the quality of services provided at hospitals has been essential owing to the inadequacy of arrangements for standard procedures and the inadequacy of work instructions based on such procedures. In this paper, we propose a method that involves the following steps: description of the job process, analysis of the causes of incidents, and the planning of improvements for the relevant job process. This method describes a healthcare process using a set of unit process flow charts (UPFCs), which are structured and standardized modules represented in the form of flow charts that elucidate the elements of jobs. Describing a job in this manner allows for an appropriate and in-depth analysis of the causes of incidents that occur during a job process, owing to the fact that the structure and description of the characteristics of relevant unit processes are properly designed. In this paper, we provide a detailed explanation of how this method was developed. Lastly, we apply the method to actual cases at a hospital to illustrate its effectiveness in comparison with the systems that are currently in place.