Transforming any business starts with someone in the executive management team gaining insight and accepting that change is necessary. Albert Einstein said it best “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.” When embarking on a Lean Healthcare Transformation is it necessary to move away from the traditional thinking towards a new model of healthcare.
Traditional hospitals are not designed for people, they are designed around processes. Sick people are moved through a series of processes, which creates lots of inefficiencies. In a traditional hospital it is an accepted practice for patients sitting in waiting rooms. A Lean Healthcare model does not accept this practice and they find ways to eliminate or reduce the amount of time that a patient has to wait for the next available nurse or physician.
In this article, I bring your attention to the application of lean principles taken from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and how they are being implemented into healthcare organizations to improve patient care.
Lean Healthcare Transformation
Lean Healthcare Transformation
Japanese vehicle manufacturer, Toyota, is well-known for developing the principles of so-called “lean manufacturing”. Research published in the International Journal of Technology Management suggests that the lean approach might also be beneficial to medical procedures, making hospitals more efficient and cut waiting lists.
Management Engineer Kasper Edwards of the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby and colleagues first reviewed the research literature on lean practices. Lean manufacturing based on the Toyota Production System is founded on the idea of “preserving value with less work”. It is perhaps the natural extension of the Ford Motor Company’s original production line approach and involves avoiding any expenditure or costs that do not create value for the end customer. From the consumer perspective, this means offering products or services at a price the customer is willing to pay.
The team hoped to discover whether the same values of lean, value and efficiency might be applied to healthcare systems. Their research demonstrates that within the Danish public healthcare system, “lean” can work very effectively for some parts of healthcare provision, such as surgical wards but not necessarily for others. Lean could thus help address the problem of not only financial constraints on public health services but also help hospitals cope with the problem of a lack of doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals in general.
The researchers point out that until recently, lean projects in healthcare have focused only on peripheral activities to improve patient flow through wards and reduction of turnover times. Numerous hospitals have implemented lean in these contexts with varying degrees of success. Likewise, administrative procedures have also benefited from a lean approach. The team has now studied the case of a major hospital outside Copenhagen with 200 employees and ten operating rooms. Surgery was split into two streams: one following normal procedures, the other running “lean” for elective operations. Ultimately, the program was initiated to create more effective working procedures, and ensure a total continuity of care to the benefit of both staff and patients in the light of absenteeism and morale problems at the hospital. View the original article.
In a world with an aging population, the only way that hospitals are going to be able to meet the growing demand is by going through a Lean Healthcare Transformation. Medical staff need to receive training to allow them to understand that lean principles demonstrate how to work smarter, not harder. Throwing more money or adding people into an already inefficient system is not going to meet the challenges of the 21st century healthcare organization.
Featured image by: Sura Nualpradid
