Lean Principles in Healthcare

Lean is a term used to describe a philosophy that aims to achieve an organization’s maximum revenue potential through the systematic elimination of waste.

Derived from business practices used by the Toyota Motor Company, the term “Lean” refers to the ability to achieve more with less. Today, the concept of Lean applies to businesses and organizations across industries, from manufacturing to healthcare.

Lean is governed by five common principles. These include:

• Specifying what creates value from the customer's perspective
• Identifying all the steps across the entire value stream
• Making those actions which create value flow seamlessly and predictably
• Only making or delivering what is required by the customer just-in-time
• Striving for perfection by continually removing successive layers of waste

In other words, by pursuing a Lean strategy an organization becomes demand-driven. In healthcare, this means that hospitals deliver the Perfect Care Model. The Perfect Care Model is a high reliability business strategy that aims for:

• The highest quality
• The delivery of reliable care
• The lowest cost
• Uncompromising levels of patient safety
• High employee and patient morale

Eliminate Non Value Added Work

One of the overarching goals of Lean practices in healthcare is to eliminate the amount of time currently spent on non value added activities in the delivery of patient care. In other words, by identifying the essential elements of care and eliminating the wasteful activities you will increase the productivity of your workforce and reduce costs. On average, lean programs double productivity and reduce costs by 20 percent. Other benefits of lean include realizing dramatic reductions in administrative costs, better patient flow paths, increased participation by the workforce in process improvement activities and high employee retention rates.

Safer Healthcare provides Lean consulting services to hospitals and healthcare systems to optimize healthcare processes and patient pathways. The benefits that can be achieved in healthcare through lean transformation include:

• Reduced waiting times
• Reduced length of stay
• Improved quality and efficiency
• Elimination of errors and adverse events
• Improved patient safety and reduced mortality
• Improved staff morale
• Improved patient satisfaction
• Efficiency gains from reduced waste
• Releasing resources and staff for improved patient care

Culture Change and Continuous Improvements

Hospitals are increasingly turning to Lean strategies to help get more out of the same resources, to help improve the quality of patient care and safety, eliminate errors, cut delays and reduce the length of patient stays in hospital.The economic challenges now facing providers makes the quest for quality an absolute necessity. High quality, safe patient care is no longer a goal, it must be an everyday practice.Safer Healthcare’s team of Lean experts is a leader in the implementation of sustainable operational improvements based on lean principles. Our team members have been working with client hospitals to identify waste and areas for optimization within a specific process or the overall clinical pathway since 1999.We can help you to build a world class lean healthcare organization where flexibility and speed of response can be combined with the highest quality of service.

Learn More about Safer Healthcare

Contact our team of experts to learn how we can help your organization increase patient safety and improve the quality of care while maximizing profitability. Call our offices to speak with one of our customer service representatives today.

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