Application of the Six Sigma metrics in clinical laboratories: an integrative review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34119/bjhrv8n6-347Keywords:
Six Sigma, clinical laboratory, systematic review, quality indicators, advantages and limitationsAbstract
Six Sigma is recognized as a successful methodology and its implementation in any company aims to optimize processes, mitigate error rates, improve quality, and, consequently, increase customer satisfaction. Sigma metrics can be obtained using different statistical applications and commonly classify companies into three stages. Approximately 70-80% of medical decisions are made with the help of a clinical laboratory. The organization and process flow in a clinical laboratory are divided into multiple and complex steps and this fact requires using powerful tools to guarantee total quality. For this reason, Six Sigma can be used for this purpose and this work proposes an integrative review of the application of Six Sigma in clinical laboratories, observing their scope of use, effects, quality indicators, and possible limitations of its application. After the use of eligibility and exclusion criteria, nine studies were selected. The results showed that the Six Sigma in clinical laboratories is distributed in public and private laboratories, located in hospitals, and universities. There is a significant increase in the use of this tool. Different indicators are used in Six Sigma, but most have with focus on pre-analytical and analytical phases and not on the general evaluation of laboratories. There is not a considerable global distribution of studies related to the application of Six Sigma and they are generally associated with laboratories involved in international accreditation processes. Finally, different existing limitations need to be observed for the interpretation of the results obtained from Six Sigma.
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