Use of Lean Response to Improve Pandemic Influenza Surge in Public Health Laboratories - Vol. 18 No. 1 - January 2012 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

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Use of Lean Response to Improve Pandemic Influenza Surge in Public Health Laboratories - Vol. 18 No. 1 - January 2012 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

Volume 18, Number 1—January 2012

Research

Use of Lean Response to Improve Pandemic Influenza Surge in Public Health Laboratories

Article Contents

• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Acknowledgments
• References
• Figure 1
• Figure 2
• Figure 3
• Figure 4
• Figure 5
• Table
• Suggested Citation

Judith L. Isaac-Renton , Yin Chang, Natalie Prystajecky, Martin Petric, Annie Mak, Brendan Abbott, Benjamin Paris, K.C. Decker, Lauren Pittenger, Steven Guercio, Jeff Stott, and Joseph D. Miller

Author affiliations: Provincial Health Services Authority, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (J.L. Isaac-Renton, Y. Chang, M. Petric, A. Mak, B. Abbott, J. Stott); University of British Columbia, Vancouver (J.L. Isaac-Renton, N. Prystajecky, M. Petric); Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Virginia, USA (B. Paris, K.C. Decker, L. Pittenger); Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (S. Guercio); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (J.D. Miller)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract

A novel influenza A (H1N1) virus detected in April 2009 rapidly spread around the world. North American provincial and state laboratories have well-defined roles and responsibilities, including providing accurate, timely test results for patients and information for regional public health and other decision makers. We used the multidisciplinary response and rapid implementation of process changes based on Lean methods at the provincial public health laboratory in British Columbia, Canada, to improve laboratory surge capacity in the 2009 influenza pandemic. Observed and computer simulating evaluation results from rapid processes changes showed that use of Lean tools successfully expanded surge capacity, which enabled response to the 10-fold increase in testing demands.

A novel influenza A (H1N1) virus was detected in Mexico and the southwestern United States in early April 2009 (1). Within days after confirmation that this virus was circulating in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, the number of requests for influenza diagnostic tests rapidly increased. It became evident that current operations would not enable the British Columbia Public Health Microbiology & Reference Laboratory (PHMRL), the major provider of influenza diagnosis for this province, to meet testing demands. We describe Lean processes that were implemented to rapidly expand surge capacity.