Duke University Hospital established a Six Sigma partnership with North Carolina State University in January of 2004, at a time when patient volume was either flat or decreasing, emergency department overcrowding and capacity constraints were increasing, hospital length of stay was flat, and overall patient satisfaction and reimbursement were declining. With such highly trained clinicians and professionals working as hard as they could to facilitate service line and departmental problem solving, it became abundantly clear that a scientific and highly systematic performance improvement process was needed.

Over the past two years, Duke University Hospital has demonstrated dramatic performance improvement results in patient satisfaction, length of stay, medication error reduction, room turnaround times, while increasing volume and revenues due to senior leadership engagement, commitment and support. The Six Sigma model for the institution highlights Leadership Alignment, Deployment, and Execution strategies that integrate a well grounded infrastructure of Six Sigma throughout the organization.

This presentation will review:

• Why Duke University chose Six Sigma


• What was needed to institute an organizational culture of excellence


• How the leadership team created a six sigma infrastructure that integrates with Balanced Scorecards and flows vertically and horizontally throughout the organization


• Breakthrough improvements that have been made