Lean In Health Care Essay

Lean management principles have shown proof of improvisations in many fields from manufacturing industries to healthcare. Years ago, lean principles were seen mainly in car manufacturing companies like Toyota. These principles were proven to be one of the most successful principles in producing quality product, eliminating waste and also achieving customer satisfaction. Based on these attributes, a lot of industries specifically healthcare encourage each sector to participate in a lean form of production in order to produce the best and quality care across the nation. Thinking Lean in healthcare is something that is not so easy. This is because healthcare has a broader array of sectors and therefore makes it extremely difficult to achieve one …show more content…
Patients’ perspectives and putting in place efficient clinical changes to provide valuable care is very essential and leads to achieving lean in healthcare. ‘It's essentially a shift in mindset, moving from viewing clinical care as a series of tasks to be completed as quickly as possible to a process that can be continuously improved on to achieve the goal of valuable outcomes for patients.’ “To find a solution to inappropriate service use, we need investment in research about what works under what circumstances and how alternative treatment approaches compare to one another. “ (Berenson and Docteur p.3). Healthcare centers or hospitals would need to identify the value of care that is being delivered and must remove any processes or waste that slows down the process in providing quality and efficient care. When we mention lean, we mean providing services that eliminates delays such as overly long patient wait times, over production, over processing and more. Thinking lean in healthcare should comprise of the ‘Six Aims’ which are Equitability, safety, Timeliness, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Patient centeredness. These aims would help hospitals provide a quality and safe environment for patients in healthcare