ABSTRACT
Standardized work starts with a simple premise: People should analyze their work and define the way that best meets the needs of all stakeholders. Many of the problems in hospitals can be traced back to a root cause that involves the lack of standardization. Hospitals must ensure that their standardized work benefits the patients, the employees, the physicians, and the hospital itself. A major challenge with standardized work is getting everybody to agree on a standardized approach, particularly when people have been left to their own approaches in the past. Ideally, staffing levels should be based on actual workloads, driven by patient demand, and the standardized work that suggests the pace at which people can work without jeopardizing quality or safety. The writing of standardized work gives hospitals an opportunity to reconsider which tasks are done by which employees. One variation on standardized work is the methodology for quick changeover, also known as setup time reduction.
