Customer Reviews

The Six Sigma Book for Healthcare: Improving Outcomes by Reducing Errors

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As a stand-alone reference this book offers very little to anyone looking to implement a six sigma program in healthcare. The book fails to address the organizational and strategic issues related to implementing a comprehensive process improvement strategy in any type of organization, let alone a healthcare organization. The book would have us believe that six sigma is the application of statistical problem solving techniques to traditional quality improvement programs. If it were that simple, many healthcare organizations have been practicing six sigma for over 15 years. Someone in healthcare looking to find out what six sigma is all about would likely be left with the impression that six sigma is just the latest buzzword. On the other hand, the book does provide some nice case studies that may be useful for a non-statistician looking to strengthen their process improvement tool belt. Either the authors don't really understand what six sigma is all about or they are just attempting to exploit the market by combining the words six sigma and healthcare in the title. Most healthcare professional would do better to look at the GE related references on the subject.

I expected the book to address the organizational and strategic issues related to implementing Six Sigma in a healthcare organization. Instead, the book has some nice case studies on applying statistical analysis to process problems and a general discussion of quality systems. This isn't the book for someone looking to implement a process improvement program but may be a useful reference for non-statisticians looking to strengthen their statistical toolkit.

While I do not want to sound offensive to the authors, I was almost offended at the simplistic level of Six Sigma description that was used in this book. You can skip the first two chapters completely and browse the rest of the text. The case studies are applicable and actually fairly good. The authors almost make it seem as though anything being done is already at a Six Sigma level, you simply need to make the numbers match. There is no real tie to making Six Sigma work in healthcare in this book. Having done a great deal of reading and research on Six Sigma, I would recommend that anyone wanting to utilize this great technique in a healthcare setting stick with Six Sigma books geared for traditional business and use them to apply principles to healthcare. In my opinion, this book was approximately $65 over-priced. Thanks to the authors, however, on a valiant effort.

I am a graduate student learning how to become a healthcare administrator. I think this book is a great tool to explain Six Sigma concepts to people who have no experience with Six Sigma. I look forward to reading Barry's new book in mid-2005. The only complaint that I have about the book is that it is a bit disorganized.

This book was a required read for my graduate program and I was very disappointed in its content. I don't think it equates at all to outcomes improvement, there was a lot missing in the correlation.

The Six Sigma folks carefully guard their secrets, wanting to enroll people into their training programs. This book, while entertaining, is slim, sparse, and personally unfulfilling. I got as much googling online as I got from this book. I had to purchase for a class at school, but recommended the school be more considerate and stop listing it as a required text.