Question

Suggest ways in which lean principles can be applied to a hospital.

Answer 1

LEAN thought finds its way into the healthcare business. LEAN is a structured way of solving waste-causing problems within a system. You may seek to remove certain types of waste in the system using LEAN methods.

1. Using a Lean approach to addressing problems, using traditional methods. A Lean hospital plan requires the assistance not only of doctors but of the entire staff of the hospital. The lean approach suggests doctors and staff need to identify a problem, understand the process, track it and collect useful information. In short, a Lean hospital approach requires knowing the source of patient frustration or inefficiency. It's close to how a physician takes a patient's history and does a physical examination.

2. Identification of meaning sources. Value streams are any series of steps creating a valuable product. The way a value stream can be improved is to reduce waste and create a process that flows towards a valuable output. The thing is this is really hard to achieve because there are so many processes that work to provide treatment. Hospitals that use a Lean care system may therefore refer to shared resources as streams of value.

3. By implementing a Lean care model and identifying and correcting wasteful processes, the hospital was able to reduce wait times for operating rooms from two hours to 60 minutes in a span of two weeks. After adopting a Lean care model and finding and fixing inefficient procedures, over a period of two weeks, the hospital was able to reduce waiting times for operating rooms from two to 60 minutes.