Scenario: The results of lab tests for patients in your department/floor are not relayed in a timely manner to the ordering physician. Physician orders to treat the patient are being delayed as a result of the problem with lab test reporting.

Background: Consider the ANALYZE phase of DMAIC and the 5 necessary steps to develop a Cause-Effect/fishbone diagram. These steps are:

1) Agree on a problem issue (effect) and record it at the center right of the flipchart or whiteboard. Draw a box around the issue statement, and then draw a horizontal arrow pointing into the box.

2) Work with the team to brainstorm the major categories of causes of the issue.

3) Distribute the category descriptions above and below the horizontal line and connect the descriptions to the horizontal arrow with arrows pointing to the horizontal line.

4) For each branch, brainstorm all the possible causes of the problem and add each cause to the diagram along with category arrows with additional arrows pointing into the category arrow.

5) When all the ideas have been recorded the group can focus attention on the sparest branches to determine if more causes might be present. After all potential causes have been entered on the chart, the team must prioritize the categories using a technique like Pareto analysis.

Question: Based on the above mentions steps, give an example of how you may use this for our lab result delay issue. Provide details.