The following article, the first of a two-part series, outlines the growing need for Six Sigma initiatives in the outpatient health care market. In part one, we’ll compare a series of health care-specific businesses with parallel enterprises from other industries in order to categorize the means by which all business elements can fit accurately within a Six Sigma framework. Neither article is meant to portray health care providers negatively, but rather to highlight the sector’s skill gaps at various levels of business sophistication.

Multiple skill sets

Most quality pundits agree that successful service-based organizations--whether they’re industrial, manufacturing or financial--are committed to increasing their employees’ knowledge base and core-business skill sets. This increased sophistication is a fundamental and cross-functional element within their respective cultures, and thus spans various business areas such as sales, marketing, communication, finance, accounting, customer service, operations management, process efficiency, credit, risk and collections.

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