Irish Company announces major new initiative at The Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne

The Leading Edge Group business in Australia (LEI Group Australia) has announced today the signing of a major Lean initiative with The Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne. The announcement was made during the Enterprise Ireland Trade and Investment Mission to Australia led by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD.

Kieran Ryan, Country Manager, for the Australian business explained that this contract will involve the delivery of a full suite of Lean training programs to a cross-section of the Melbourne hospital staff in association with the Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association (AHHA). "This will create a core group of experts working on projects to improve the cost, quality and delivery of services to their patients and other stakeholders. The success of this core group will not only deliver improvements within The Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne but will also encourage other healthcare organizations and hospitals to follow suit, to significantly improve patient care across the healthcare continuum".

Speaking from Melbourne Minister Bruton said: "This is a very important announcement for the Leading Edge Group. Their success in winning this contract with The Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne confirms the company's reputation for providing quality, innovative services in the healthcare sector, and is a good example of the type of company we are trying to support through Enterprise Ireland. I know they have ambitious plans for continued growth in this market and I wish them every success for the future".

Joe Aherne, CEO, of the Leading Edge Group is delighted with the progress of their Australian operation since establishing a local office in Sydney in February 2014. "The Group is currently finalising consulting and training contracts worth over $200,000 in Sydney and Melbourne and we are absolutely thrilled with the response that we have received to date in both the healthcare and non-healthcare sectors. Our relationship with the AHHA has been instrumental to our continuing success in healthcare".

The views of Alison Verhoeven, CEO, of the AHHA are clear: "Hospitals and health services across Australia are looking at ways they can maximise the value of health spending, and optimise safety, quality, innovation and efficiency. A 'Lean' approach to healthcare supports continuous quality improvement goals, and helps hospitals and health services achieve best practice. Our members, who include public hospitals and health care providers across the health system from primary to acute care, are committed to ensuring Australia's health system provides affordable, high quality healthcare for all Australians. Our work in promoting Lean quality improvement programs in conjunction with LEI Group Australia is an important contribution to this".

About LEI Group Australia

LEI Group Australia is a branch of The Leading Edge Group which is an Irish owned company, creating fundamental and immediate change in organizations across the globe. For more than 17 years the Leading Edge Group have been successfully growing and implementing Continuous Improvement Programmes using Lean, Six Sigma and Supply Chain Management tools and techniques to achieve operational and strategic results for their clients in healthcare, services, manufacturing and supply chain sectors. The company is now a global leader in the provision of Lean education and works in partnership with a number of academic and professional bodies to provide internationally accredited Lean certification programmes.

About AHHA

The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA), is the independent peer membership body and advocate for the Australian healthcare system and a national voice for universally accessible, high quality healthcare in Australia. The AHHA is uniquely positioned to facilitate collaboration between clinicians, academics, policy makers, administrators and politicians.

Membership of the AHHA assists the influence of policies of provision of best practice care by connecting colleagues in all states and territories through policy networks; facilitating participation in discussing and developing policies, deliverables and options and organising delegations to governments.

About Lean

Lean is a methodology and set of tools and practices that enables an organization to better focus on what their customers want and need (value). Lean identifies wasteful activities that do not enhance the customer or patient experience, and provides a means to remove or reduce them. This increases operational effectiveness and efficiency and results in significant cost savings or avoidance for the organization, as well as greater job satisfaction for everyone working there. Becoming a Lean organization enables a culture of ongoing continuous improvement, while the application of Lean provides a means to achieve and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.