(Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute: Atlanta) -- Georgia rural hospitals that face growing financial pressures are receiving assistance from a new Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) pilot project that is helping them improve processes and reduce waste. Supported by the Healthcare Georgia Foundation, the initiative will help the seven rural hospitals increase capacity, improve service quality, and cut costs. The benefits will come from adopting performance improvement techniques that are already widely used in manufacturing.

The two-year demonstration project will help train rural hospital staff in lean techniques that identify waste in processes and find ways to eliminate it. Georgia Tech has successfully used the lean health care training approach with hospitals in Atlanta, Columbus, Newnan, and Vidalia.

“We want to take the techniques that have proven to be so successful in large hospitals and use them in small, rural hospitals,” says Frank Mewborn, director of the Healthcare Performance Group in Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. “Rural hospitals typically don't have the resources to hire outside consultants to help with performance improvement issues, so we very much appreciate the support from Healthcare Georgia Foundation to make this initiative possible.”

 …