Wright Way Consulting

Six Sigma Benchmarking efforts are systematic and structured, concentrating on superior performance at the end of the project. The success of each benchmarking efforts is dependent on the participation of all the team members, black belt and champion involved. The involvement and the commitment of senior management are necessary and it plays a vital role for six sigma efforts. Internal process of the project understanding is very necessary for the six sigma team.

Six sigma efforts will definitely fail if Six Sigma team does not understand the internal processes or management does not support them on regular basis. Team should focus on area of concern. Due to following reasons six sigma benchmarking efforts fails in many companies: Lack of understanding: Lack of understanding of internal processes, vision, mission and goal of the organization is the key factor for Six Sigma benchmarking failures. Management must align the activities with the mission statement of the organization otherwise all efforts will be wasted.

Other factors are: fail to understand the needs and wants of the customer; the out comes of the processes and the performance of the complete process. Lack of sponsorship: The acceptance of the six sigma benchmarking project and its objectives potential costs by management is very important otherwise any improvements made may prove useless. Team leaders may not accept the improvements for lack of understanding of internal processes. Unfamiliar Teams: Members of the team should be familiar to the process or the area under consideration otherwise they will not be able to understand the details of the process and its relevance to the success of the project. The members of the six sigma team should be people who have vast experience in the working of the process. Too much work: If team decides to cover broader area, it will be unmanageable to carry out all the projects systematically and timely to its logical solution.

Team should prepare simple flowcharts, logical approach to six sigma efforts to complete the six sigma project successfully. Lack of commitment: If managers underestimate the efforts in terms of times and cost without knowing the pros and cons of the project, it will fail. Lack of commitment of top management six sigma efforts means sure failure of the project. If management is involved in six sigma process and take special attention then this process will definitely give positive results, better ROI (return of investment) to the organization.

Copyright © Nick Mutt, All Rights Reserved. If you want to use this article on your website or in your ezine, make all the urls (links) active.

Read information on the Process of Six Sigma benchmarking efforts. Read comprehensive List of Top Herbal Health Affiliate Programs and oppourtunities. Also Know ERP Features and Functions – Enterprise Resource Planning system.

Time and billing for law firms is an important aspect in the daily functioning of law firms across the world. Till date, most time and billing data captured in law firms were documented manually. In the recent times, due to the creation of software solutions for tracking time and billing for law firms has made the entire process easier, quicker, and far more accurate. And that’s not all!

Some of the high-end time and billing software solutions for law firms offer several functionalities that streamline the entire process of time and billing. Some of the most important features of these software solutions include customized billing style, cost or time entry, electronic billing as well as task-based billing. The software solutions have been created in accordance to the various needs for time and billing for law firms.

Most of the top-end solutions available in the market today are completely integrated accounting software’s with built-in financial management systems. The salient point of these time and billing solutions is that they have the ability to eliminate any and all redundant entries while maintaining and managing separate applications. As a result you will be able to generate hundreds of accurate time and billing reports for your law firm in the quickest possible time and with ease.

There are several aspects of time and billing for law firms and the software solutions available in the market have been created keeping these aspects in mind. A high-end time and billing software for law firms can help your back office employees to track overhead costs, fee income, productivity, specific client billing, day-wise or weekly billing, matter expenses, and much more. You will also be able to create, print, and email financial statements at the end of each month. The stress is on accurate information and these solutions can provide the same without your having to fill in each entry manually and cross-reference them – the software does it all once an entry has been uploaded into the database.

Working on a time and billing software solution for law firms is quite different from generic bookkeeping software’s available in the market. The time and billing solutions are specific software’s with multiple functionalities that can help you to manage billing, law office time, time spent on each client, billable hours for a single client or multiple clients and above all it will help you to ensure that your law firm is in compliance with the bar’s trust account regulations of your state.

Most of the top-end software solutions for managing time and billing for law firms can manage and generate different types of statements and billing reports. These software solutions are capable of generating financial statements, productivity statements, and even finance journals for analyzing your law practice. Even if your law firm is into contingency fee-based practices and is hence unable to track time and billing on a regular basis, the time and billing software can initiate a process to ensure that time and billing is tracked regularly. This in a way will also help you to manage different types of advance costs as well as contingency fee revenue. It is definitely full-functionality software that offers flexibility in time and billing for law firms.

Technology has changed our lives drastically over the past 20 years. Just about everything can be done online these days from shopping, dating and working to even consulting a doctor thousands of miles away.

One of the fastest growing online medical Internet platforms is Myca which allows doctor-patient consultation remotely, by phone, email, instant messaging or even videoconferencing. It also enables patients to schedule doctor’s appointments online. Myca is barely two years old but has gained quite a following. In the US, the Myca Platform goes under the Hello Health trademark. Welcome to today’s e-practice. The doctors call themselves “your friendly 21st doctors in the neighbourhood”.

Telemedicine / virtual medicine encompasses any digital form (e-mail, fax, telephone, videoconferencing, etc.) of bringing together patients and physicians. However, with the arrival of less expensive broad-band internet access and digital imaging, telemedicine currently refers to interactive, full motion, two-way video and audio over high-speed data networks. Patients and physicians are connected through secure web camera video that also allows rapid assessment of the patient.

What makes e-practices appealing?

(1) Cost-efficiency. E-practices need fewer personnel to run and operate, need less space to rent, thus have less overhead. This translates into cheaper bills for patients. E-practices normally charge less than the traditional doctor’s practice.

(2) Convenience. E-practices are efficient and convenient. Patients can set appointments online, and can choose the media they prefer. There are less hassles, no long waiting time in waiting rooms, no long drives or commutes to see a specialist. Refilling of prescriptions goes faster. Medical information is all stored electronically, easily available for future use.

(3) Privacy. For one reason or another, patients may prefer a more discrete way of consulting a doctor rather than just simply walking into a doctor’s practice. E-practices offer the anonymity that many patients may wish for. For the Internet generation, online medicine is hip and cool. The Facebook-like platform of Hello Health appeals to this age group.

Skeptics, however, assert that virtual practices can’t truly replace traditional face-to-face medical practice. Here are their arguments:

(1) Lack of empathy. Many people feel that medicine is becoming dehumanized by technological advancement. Bedside manners are important aspects of medicine wherein e-practices are rather lacking. A picture on the video screen or a voice over the phone is no substitute for a flesh-and-blood doctor.

(2) Data protection and privacy. E-practices have to rely on electronic health records. Due to well-publicized cases of data stealing and hacking, concerns over data protection are still a major hurdle to overcome.

(3) Regulation and accreditation. Virtual practices now exist all over the world, from Europe to India. Anybody can pretend to be health practitioner online. Scams over the Internet abound. Think about online pharmacies that offer all types of medications that may turn out to be counterfeit, much worse dangerous. Many health advocates are concerned about similar scams that can put the susceptible patient at risk. Currently, there are no real regulations governing e-practices.

Telemedicine doesn’t simply stop at consultation but extends to follow-up care of the chronically ill. How about having somebody to remind you of checking your blood pressure, taking your medicine, and refilling your prescription? Canadian researchers investigated the effect of computer-automated phone calls in the management of hypertension. Their results show that such a system helps patients manage their hypertension effectively.

A policy statement from the American Heart Association recommends “the implementation of telemedicine within stroke systems of care.” These recommendations especially apply in remote rural areas where there are no specialized stroke centers and very few neurologists to cover emergencies. Telestroke patients provide their medical history online and are examined by doctors remotely. Pictures from neuroimaging are displayed on the doctor’s local computer and quickly interpreted. If needed, treatment including thrombolysis (clot-busting) is ordered and can be monitored. In addition, with the use of the so-called crowdsourcing diagnostic data, neurologists are now able to diagnose more accurately ischemic stroke.

Cost-efficiency and acheiving a better and more accurate diagnosis utilizing crowdsourcing is the major argument in favor of telemedicine. The Canadian study on automated blood pressure monitoring system had to conduct an additional investigation on cost effectiveness. Without this additional benefit, the healthcare system wouldn’t accept it. Crowdsourcing diagnostics is a tool which can be used by doctors in an online or face-to-face practice. Using computer software, doctors enter the symptoms and test results of a patient, and the software give the most likely diagnoses and the probability for each.

An example of such a software is SimulConsult, a sophisticated online crowd-sourcing tool for identifying neurological disorders that demonstrates the potential of the Web to transform the way all kinds of diseases are diagnosed. It is like having access to the knowledge and experience of hundreds of other doctors. The result is better and quicker diagnosis, avoidance of unnecessary tests and referrals to the wrong specialists, and lower health care costs.

However researchers have identified six major barriers to the effectiveness of telemedicine, not only in stroke care but in general medical care overall; defining medical specialties suitable for telemedicine, medical licensure and liability laws, securing the health information being shared, creating simple processes for requesting and performing the consultation, developing financial models for reimbursement of telestroke services and gaining acceptance of remote consultation from patients, physicians, and payers.

Online medicine is also involved in one of the most exciting and promising areas of surgery – robotic telesurgery as opposed to the more common procedure of robotic-assisted surgery.

The da Vinci Surgical System is the most well known robotic assisted surgery system and has been around for more than a decade. It has been used in different kinds of surgical interventions from laparoscopic surgery to radical prostatectomy to heart bypass. The da Vinci is intended to assist in the control of several endoscopic instruments, including rigid endoscopes, blunt and sharp dissectors, scissors, scalpels, and forceps. The system is cleared by the FDA to manipulate tissue by grasping, cutting, dissecting and suturing.

Another system is the ZEUS Robotic Surgical System which has been cleared by the FDA “to assist in the control of blunt dissectors, retractors, graspers, and stabilizers during laparoscopic and thoracoscopic surgeries”. It, too, is used to assist surgeons and has one advantage over da Vinci – it responds to voice commands.

Unlike robotic-assisted surgery which requires the physical presence of the surgeon on location, telesurgery can be performed by the surgeon from remote- the so-called online surgeon. In telesurgery the surgeon sits in a console and guides “the movement of the robotic arms in a process known as telemanipulation”. In the UK, kidney operations have been performed by a robot remotely operated by a surgeon thousands of miles away. In Italy, a robot performed a heart surgery controlled remotely by a surgeon in Boston. These are, strictly speaking, not “unmanned” or “unassisted” surgeries but these are pioneering examples of telesurgery which allows surgeons to operate wherever they are. It is not yet as advanced or as popular as manned robotic surgery.

Robotic or telesurgery has the advantage of precision miniaturization, minimally invasive, less risk of infection, less blood loss, faster healing and shorter hospital t
ime. Because of these advantages robotic surgery has become the favorite method of performing prostatectomy on men with suspected prostate cancer. It supposedly helps keep urinary and sexual function after the procedure.

Currently, robotic surgery is still of limited use due to the following limitations:

(1) Cost. Only big hospitals with sufficient funds and high caseloads can afford to invest in surgical robots. A da Vinci System would cost between 1 to 1.7 million US. Currently, there are only about 1,100 of these machines in the world.

(2) Acceptance. Many patients may still have the problem of accepting the fact that a machine is cutting them up or that the surgeon is thousands of miles away. For others, it can even be scary to imagine that medicine can be performed via YouTube or that medical records are exchanged over Facebook. As patients become more technology savvy, the acceptance will also increase.

(3) Training. A robot is only as good as its operator. It is estimated that a surgeon has to work on 100 cases before he can confidently and efficiently perform cardiac surgery with a robot. According to Dr. Douglas Murphy, a cardiac surgeon at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta, there’s no immediate financial incentive to do that [train in robotic surgery] since the reimbursement is the same. That means few surgeons — let alone other members of the surgical team — can afford to travel and observe an expert in action. That is why Murphy and colleagues, set up the first “robotic surgery college.” Using multimedia presentations, web chats, and live video feeds of interventions, experts in Atlanta are now training surgeons thousands of miles away in robotic surgery.

From consulting and diagnosing to performing telesurgery, online medicine is here to stay and continues to proliferate. Despite legitimate concerns, the Doctor is IN.