“We represent Quest Diagnostics on the commercial reference side we have our for-profit commercial operation, which is Sonora Quest Laboratories and we also manage and staff the laboratories at all the Banner Hospitals,” Santis explains. It’s a joint venture between Banner Health, the largest health care system in Arizona, and Quest Diagnostics Inc, the nation’s largest clinical testing provider. And it doesn’t happen overnight.Įven before Six Sigma, SQL was not a run-of-the-mill laboratory operation. It’s equivalent to changing one’s entire philosophy on how business processes should be done. Still, the system is complicated, has a learning curve, and requires investment in time and money. “It’s made such a difference in our laboratory.” In doing so, we have learned that we can also bring cost savings, which allow us to do the things that we need to do,” she says. “It’s about reducing error, and it’s about improving processes. Also, SQL has found a great deal of additional recognition since implementing the system close to 5 years ago. And where it is is impressive: SQL received the 2003 Arizona Pioneer Award for Quality, the first health care organization to win it. Without the system, Sonora Quest Laboratories (SQL), based in Tempe, Ariz, could not be close to where it is today, says Joyce Santis, MBA, HCM, the company’s COO. It is not a specific company’s product but a nonbranded program that can be applied to any organization. But Six Sigma, as many organizations inside and outside of health care are finding out, is a quality-management system that has the very real goal of making work processes as perfect as possible.

Add to it that it involves people who work up to earning Green and Black Belts, and it seems even more fantastic. It sounds like it could be the speed of a spaceship in your average science fiction novel.

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