BAMA Triage Improvement Plan
Control
Team Blue
SYM 630, MOD 7
June 15, 2010

Introduction The control phase of DMAIC is critical to sustaining the gains achieved from the previous phases. Control plans help add discipline and accountability to goals of the project improvement. A comprehensive control plan allows there to be a documented guideline that can be easily followed to make sure that the improvements of a Six Sigma project are maintained. This paper will show the development of a robust control plan in terms of the four components including discipline, documentation, score keeping, and process management plan. Healthcare is a critical industry that can benefit from the Six Sigma mindset.
Review of BAMA
Broderson Army Medical Authority (BAMA) is a fictitious 425 bed Level One Trauma Center owned and operated by the United States Army. BAMA offers a wide range of critical treatment opportunities such as a world-class burn institute, traumatic brain injury institute, poly-trauma center and a center for the rehabilitation of amputees that is based on cutting edge technology. Because of this specialized capability, the majority of BAMA’s new patients come through on an emergent base.
Six Sigma Issues The ER of any hospital is considered a high visibility department secondary to their emergent demographic. BAMA has approximately 40,000 visits to the emergency room (ER) each year. This can have the entire above-mentioned patient load in various states of repair (acuity), frequently creating a bottleneck in workflow through the ER.
The Triage Process The gateway to the emergency room process where actual treatment is administered is through a process called “Triage”. Triage is the process where emergent care is determined, categorized by acuity and priority and placed in a medical order of necessity. The BAMA standard for triage is 20 minutes