Lean Six Sigma for the Healthcare Enterprise

Dr. Sandy Furterer is a Professor of Practice at The Ohio State University, in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering. She is the Curriculum Director for the College of Engineering’s Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology program. She was a tenured Associate Professor in the Engineering Management Systems and Technology department at the University of Dayton. She teaches online courses as a part time instructor for Kennesaw State University and California State University Dominguez Hills. She has applied Lean Six Sigma, Systems Engineering, and Engineering Management tools in healthcare and other service industries. She previously managed the Enterprise Performance Excellence center in a healthcare system. Dr. Furterer received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in Quality Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 2004. She received an MBA from Xavier University, and a Bachelor and Master of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University. She is an ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Certified Manager of Quality/ Organizational Excellence, Certified Quality Engineer, an ASQ fellow, and a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, a Senior Member in IISE, and recent past president in IISE’s Society of Engineering and Management Systems.Some recent honors and awards that Dr. Furterer received include: 2024 IAQ Walter E. Masing Book Prize Lean Sustainability: A Pathway to a Circular Economy co-authored with Elizabeth Cudney, Chad Laux and Gaganpreet Singh Hundal; 2024 Book of the Year Award for Lean Sustainability: A Pathway to a Circular Economy from the International Lean Six Sigma Institute (ILSSI) co-authored with Elizabeth Cudney, Chad Laux and Gaganpreet Singh Hundal; 2022 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) OPEX Division Teaching Award; 2022 Bernard R. Sarchet Award from ASEE Engineering Management Division for “lifetime achievement in engineering management education”.

• Enabling enterprise performance excellence through strategic business process architecture modeling techniques.- Lean Six sigma roadmap.- Hospital and emergency department throughput improvement.- Operating room turnaround and on time starts improvement.- Applying 5S to improve OR organization.- Leaning the surgical outpatient screening process in an acute care hospital.- Appropriate use of CT scan in the emergency department.- Applying Lean Six Sigma to optimize light levels in the NICU.- Sepsis protocol design project.- Improving satisfaction and timeliness in interventional radiology processes through Lean Six Sigma.- Innovating the patient care operating model: Integrated value care.- Labor management in healthcare: Flaws and best practices.- Applying modelling and simulation to reduce time and cost of implementing process improvements.- Applications of artificial intelligence for improving processes in healthcare.- The future and challenge of Lean Six Sigma in healthcare.