What Is Lean Healthcare?

What Is Lean Healthcare
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What does lean mean in healthcare?

Definition – Lean is a set of operating philosophies and methods that help create a maximum value for patients by reducing waste and waits, The approach was originally derived from the Toyota car company production line system: a continuous process improvement system comprising of structured inventory management, waste reduction and quality improvement techniques,

Lean utilises a continuous learning cycle that is driven by the ‘true’ experts in the processes of health care, being the patients/families, health care providers and support staff, The majority of lean investigations published in the international literature refer to the Toyota management system as applied to health care,

In particular, the Virginia Mason Medical Center’s application of lean ‘became the catalyst for lean health care’ in other health systems, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom, Other authors refer to Thedacare or simply to a lean management system or lean principles/lean philosophy,

What are the 5 elements of lean?

Five Key Lean Principles Every Engineer Should Know – The Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), founded by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones in 1997, is considered the go-to resource for lean wisdom, training, and seminars. According to Womack and Jones, there are five key lean principles: value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection.

What does lean stand for?

What Does LEAN Stand for? – A common misconception about the word “lean” is that it’s an acronym. It doesn’t stand for anything in terms of the process for product creation. The acronym people are thinking about have less to do with ideas like a value stream and more to do with diet and fitness.

What are the goals of lean healthcare?

What Is Lean Healthcare? – Lean is not a rigid or short-term set of standards; thus, its adaptability and iterative nature make it a valuable strategy for both product- and process-focused industries. In other words, Lean can be applied to organizations that revolve around repeatable assembly-line production or more service-focused work — like a hospital or healthcare system.

Promoting a culture of continuous improvement. Implementing processes that add value to the patient’s experience, and eliminating those that do not. Aligning leaders and staff around a shared vision. Empowering frontline staff to drive improvement efforts while respecting their expertise as the individuals who do the work. An organization’s willingness to change by identifying the root cause of problems and making corrections to improve processes.

Training Within Industry (TWI) instruction for healthcare often incorporates Lean tactics, When first introduced to the concept of Lean healthcare, many people might object that “patients are not products!” While this is true, it should be noted that a Lean approach to identifying waste and variation is evidence-based — much like a doctor’s approach to diagnosing and treating a patient.

While the “end results” of manufacturing vs. healthcare are fundamentally different, they can be achieved using the same methods. Just like in any other industry, the primary goal of Lean healthcare is identifying and reducing waste and defects. Defects can manifest in healthcare in ways large and small, inconvenient or dire: excess supplies, overworked staff, overmedicated patients or high infection rates.

A healthcare provider’s first duty is to do no harm, but poorly designed processes make delivering on that promise challenging. That’s where Lean comes in. All members of a healthcare organization must participate in system-wide improvement — from the facility’s chief medical officer, to the shift nurses, to the internal medicine specialists, to the ambulance drivers and the front desk receptionists.

What are the 3 types of lean?

The Toyota Production System, and later on the concept of Lean, was developed around eliminating the three types of deviations that shows inefficient allocation of resources. The three types are Muda (無駄, waste), Mura (斑, unevenness), and Muri (無理, overburden).

What is the lean model?

What is the Lean Business Model? – The lean business model is designed to reduce waste in business processes, If an organization thoroughly integrates lean concepts into its operations, a likely outcome is a reduced need for cash, fewer errors, higher-quality products, and faster deliveries to customers,

What are the 4 P’s of lean?

Lean Implementation – Because the main goal of Lean is to create more value with fewer resources, a Lean company strives to create an organization that provides perfect value with zero waste. In addition to changing from silo to matrix management, implementing Lean follows four basic tenets, known as the four Ps of Lean thinking: purpose, process, people, and performance.

What are the 7 ways in lean?

The Seven Wastes of Lean Manufacturing and Their Impacts on the Environment – Lean manufacturing, a management philosophy primarily derived from the Toyota Production System, focuses on eliminating waste—called “Muda”— within a manufacturing system. It takes into account many kinds of waste, including the waste of excessive human motion, and aims to integrate each step of production into a holistic, efficient process that reduces cost and improves overall revenue.

What is Lean Six Sigma in healthcare?

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a methodology which when implemented in an organization, helps to increase the process capability and the efficiency, by reducing the defects and wastes. The present study systematically reviews the research studies conducted on LSS in the healthcare sector.

What are 2 meanings of lean?

: to incline, deviate, or bend from a vertical position. He leaned back in his chair. : to cast one’s weight to one side for support. Lean on me as we walk. : to rely for support or inspiration.

Who defines lean?

Dear Gemba Coach, My company is adopting lean, which has so many definitions that I find it confusing. What’s your definition and why can’t all these lean experts agree? What an interesting question, and indeed hard to answer – for a number of reasons.

Let me try and share my personal definition. But first, a bit of background. The term “lean” was coined in the mid-eighties to describe a set of manufacturing techniques discovered in the Japanese automotive industry, mainly at Toyota, by opposition to mass production, At the time of publication, in 1990, Toyota was half the size of General Motors and two-thirds the size of Ford.

Today, Toyota boasts 50% more revenue than GM and 70% more than Ford. It is valued more than GM, Ford and Honda combined. It is also as profitable as BMW, a luxury boutique. Clearly, Toyota was doing something different back then, and clearly, this has worked and is still working).

Operational excellence: Lean is what we do, but done better. To many, lean is a box of optimization tricks to make the current business model perform, by applying improvement tools to every process, one at a time. The assumption is that if every part works better, the whole should perform better as well.
Value stream organization: Lean is a different way to organize operations in order to maximize the flow of value to customers by establishing just-in-time throughout the supply chain, which requires kaizen – continuous improvement from the workers themselves in order to minimize waste,
Business strategy: Lean is a worldview change about how to look at competitiveness, from the relationships with customers, with employees and with suppliers based on a problem-based developmental approach of every person and a radically different way of thinking about business.

The common aspect to these three perspectives is that they all agree “lean” is a form of “gemba” management (gemba meaning the workplace, the real place, where things happen, and value is added). Lean is clearly different from traditional management because it assumes one can only management meaningfully from standing right where value is being added and by looking for a better way, through kaizen (step-by-step improvement).

A set of techniques to identify and eliminate waste from operations.
A system of organization principles to maximize value and eliminate waste.
A competitiveness strategy based on satisfying customers by ever better products by developing deeper understanding and greater teamwork from every employee.

Is Toyota Relevant? Supporters of the first approach consider that most of Toyota’s techniques originate from the wartime U.S. Training Within Industry programs – refined by Japanese precision and the influence of the American quality guru W. Edwards Deming.

Lean is mostly used to take costs out of operations by applying lean “tools” – i.e. Toyota-inspired work analysis techniques to every process and generating savings. With this in mind, the techniques can be safely taken out of context and applied to any process, regardless of the bigger picture. This approach has generated an entire industry of lean consultants who will run “savings” programs by rolling out applying basic techniques across the board, mostly focused on “eliminating waste.” Defenders of the second approach agree that spot optimization seldom leads to global – or lasting – improvement and concur that the production of value must be accelerated throughout the organization.

To do so, their focus is on 1) defining value more tightly (always a tricky exercise); 2) mapping and clarifying the path of value through the organizational silos, and if possible changing the organization to reflect these “value streams;” 3) making value flow by eliminating the traditional obstacles created by mass production, such as long batches and piece-rate productivity; 4) pulling value across the organization by using new techniques such as kanban and other just-in-time tricks, so that work is produced only as needed, when needed, and in the quantity needed and, finally, in order to do all; 5) constantly engage all employees in improvement by using the lean tools to identify waste and eliminated it – in the context of always accelerating the flow of value (or, technically, reducing the production lead-time between a single order and its delivery).

Proponents of the third approach take yet another perspective and seek overall competitiveness by obsessing on “one-time customer, lifelong customer.” This entails an obsessive attention to quality and delivery, starting with product or service design all the way to production and supplier integration.

In order to keep one’s customers, one has to constantly improve the quality of the current products as well as broaden the product range by proposing innovative solutions. To achieve this, every employee is engaged by its management to think more deeply about what they do in terms of 1) visualizing their work processes and job purpose; 2) being more autonomous in problem solving ; 3) working better with colleagues across functional borders, in order to; 4) feel greater responsibility, take more initiative, and have more creative ideas.

With this worldview, lean is a thinking approach to stimulate each person’s greater understanding of the purpose of their job in the chain of value as well as how to better cooperate with upstream and downstream activities. Not surprising, succeeding at this ambitious plan of better managing individual talents and energies requires a completely different approach to both leadership and management, notably transforming the traditional chain of command-and-control into a chain of help.

The first two meanings of “lean” are by now rather well understood and codified in terms of:

Operational excellence: codify Toyota’s improvement techniques and apply them piecemeal in any context.
Value-stream organization: study deeply Toyota’s core principles and extrapolate them in different industries.

And by and large, the feeling is that the reference to Toyota is no longer quite as relevant as when we were all learning this stuff. The consensus is that what was there to learn at Toyota was discovered, captured, and written down a while back and that it’s now a question of leadership will and disciplined execution.

Indeed, several lean practitioners are now ready to look beyond Toyota for new inspiration.
How I Define Lean Proponents of the third approach remain puzzled by Toyota’s amazing competitive success and not so certain that all is understood.
Their hunch is that is we are really looking at a business system paradigm shift – the feeling we had in the 1990s – most cut and dried explanations will really be a reversal to the mean: normalizing Toyota’s differences into what business already does, with an added plus of lean culture.

For this set of lean people, Toyota today remains very relevant, not necessarily as an ideal, but certainly as long-lasting representative of a different way of thinking we have not quite grasped right now. Which is, you’ll have to guess where I stand, and why my own definition of lean is “the project to understand what Toyota does differently and see whether this is meaningful outside of automotive,” Luckily, as opposed to other Japanese companies, Toyota has made tremendous efforts to spell out their business system, particularly in the forms of the Toyota Production System (another Toyota name for it is the “Thinking People System,” which is quite telling):

Customer satisfaction;
Resting on the pillars of jidoka and just-in-time;
And the base of employee satisfaction through standardized work and kaizen;
Itself resting on the foundation of mutual trust between employees and management.

What is an example of Lean in healthcare?

Examples of Lean in Healthcare – Lean in healthcare has improved patient satisfaction, increased revenue and decreased overtime work. Likewise, as a result of deploying Lean principles, improvements have been recorded in processing paperwork and scheduling appointments.

Hospitals, clinics and healthcare centres have successfully deployed lean in various areas of their operational processes. One great example of lean in healthcare is the Virginia Mason, By deploying lean tools, the hospital was able to implement a Patient Safety Alert (PSA) initiative. This system was devised for staff to be able to report problems that involve patient safety.

Once reports were made, they were investigated, and necessary solutions implemented. As such, Virginia Mason was able to reduce their liability claims by 74% from 2005 to 2015. More so, nurses in ThedaCare were able to increase their time with patients by 70%.

What are the key pillars of Lean?

The Pillars of Lean: Continuous Improvement and Respect for People – The two pillars of Lean are continuous improvement and respect for people. When used correctly, these guiding principles inform smarter decision making and guide organizations toward becoming healthier, more productive systems.

What is an example of lean thinking?

Q3: What is a good example of lean thinking? – An excellent example of lean thinking is on-demand production. It helps monitor overproduction as well as under-production of goods/services. Consequently, you are always in a position to meet customer requirements.

What are lean tools?

What Are Lean Tools? – The Japanese word for waste is muda, which is defined as “uselessness.” Lean tools are designed to reduce Muda in organizations and improve quality control. In other words, Lean tools seek to eliminate processes that aren’t valuable.

Lean tools are utilized across many industries—from manufacturing to engineering to finance— and organizations often leverage them together with Six Sigma methods. Though there are some differences between the two frameworks, the underlying philosophies behind Lean and Six Sigma complement each other exceptionally well: Lean tools are designed to eliminate invaluable processes, while Six Sigma focuses on lessening variation within a process.

When used together, the two are referred to as Lean Six Sigma, a process that reduces and manages different types of waste in organizations. Though there are several different types of Lean tools, this article will focus on seven of them, and how they can be applied.


Lean Tools	Summary
Bottleneck Analysis	Structured way of looking at workflows
Just-in-Time (JIT)	On-demand system of production
Value Stream Mapping	Analyzing and optimizing a process
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)	Measure of productive time
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)	Method to manage change
Error Proofing	Analysis tool based on prevention
Root Cause Analysis (RCA)	Method to get the foundation of an issue

What is the 5 why lean method?

Origin of the 5 Whys – The 5 Whys concept was originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Industries Corporation in the 1930s. But the concept reached a mainstream audience later in the 1950s, when Taiichi Ohno, the architect of the Toyota Production System popularized the 5 Whys concept,

Besides the crucial role he played in Toyota’s manufacturing evolution, Ohno is generally considered one of the early pioneers of Lean thinking. He discussed the 5 Whys of Lean in his book, Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, In it, he introduced the idea as “the basis of Toyota’s scientific approach.” As a company, Toyota based much of its troubleshooting work on a “go and see” philosophy.

In other words, its leadership works to make decisions based on a detailed understanding of what is actually happening on a manufacturing floor instead of relying on what executives of board room members think may be happening. That’s one of the central reasons why the 5 Whys concept requires active input from team members – it does not work as a singular or isolated undertaking.

The 5 Whys concept is based on a simple premise: When a problem occurs, ask the question Why? up to five times, until a viable solution comes into view. The 5 Whys is a problem-solving technique designed to help companies uncover the root cause of a problem. The answer to each additional Why helps teams drill down a bit further, until both the nature of the problem as well as the solution becomes clear.

The 5 Whys can often be helpful in troubleshooting things like product issues, general problem solving, quality control, or process improvement. The process works well for simple to moderate problems, but it is less effective for complex or critical problems.

The simplicity of the 5 Whys makes it ideal for situations that call for a root cause analysis, a systematic process focused on identifying a core problem to be addressed.
Clearly identifying the problem to be solved is the first step.
If it appears at the outset to be a problem that would benefit from a root cause analysis, applying the 5 Whys technique most likely makes sense.

Conversely, complex situations that require potentially multiple solutions will most likely be served by wider-ranging methods. Let’s say you have Lean teams working to design and produce a new 15-inch laptop. In the design phase, test engineers begin seeing reduced performance in performance tests and benchmarks.

The behavior is repeatable and consistent: Performance starts strong, but quickly tapers off. Using the 5 Whys, it becomes clear that performance degradation occurs due to thermal issues. When the processor gets taxed for extended periods, it eventually starts to overheat. System engineers can then investigate potential thermal solutions.

They might look at mechanical solutions like decreasing the size of the battery to make room for a larger fan, or maybe even adding a second fan. And what if this issue wasn’t discovered until the laptop was in production and already in the hands of customers? That makes hardware changes much more difficult and costly to implement.

In that situation, engineers may decide to pursue non-hardware alternatives; for example, revisiting fan speeds and timing settings at the BIOS level to keep the processor cooler for longer.
Another manufacturing scenario where the 5 Whys might make sense to apply: Imagine you are part of a production team responsible for producing sedans in a specific plant.

The number of cars your team has produced dropped by over 20% compared to previous months. Using the 5 Whys, your team is able to narrow down one part in the production process that continues to slow down the team. Due to part changes, mounting the engine now requires three additional manual steps.

In this case, the team could work with leadership to automate portions of new steps to improve overall production times.
Software development is another place where the 5 Whys could prove helpful.
You could be a member of a development team responsible for delivering a release candidate to a customer in the next four weeks.

Members of the team voice concern with meeting the delivery deadline. Using the 5 Whys, it’s clear that the development of one key feature is taking longer to complete than anticipated. Hiring more developers is not an option due to budget reasons. After team discussion, the project lead apprises the customer of the situation, proposing a way to deprioritize secondary elements of the core feature functionality.

What are the 4 goals of lean?

The 4 Goals of Lean Manufacturing Lean manufacturing, also known as lean production, is a philosophy based around the elimination of waste within a system. First pioneered by the Toyota Production System in the 1990s, it’s become widely used throughout the manufacturing industry.

Today, hundreds of manufacturing companies embrace the principle of lean manufacturing to reduce waste and improve their overall operations.
But what exactly are the goals of lean manufacturing? Lean manufacturing typically has four goals, one of which is to improve quality.
Manufacturing companies today must focus on producing, and delivering, high-quality products to beat the competition.

While there are dozens of different ways to improve the quality of manufactured products, lean manufacturing can help. By reducing unnecessary waste, companies can shift their focus towards the product at hand, investing additional time and resources into making the product better.

A second goal of lean manufacturing, and arguably the most important, is to eliminate waste. Manufacturing companies tend to produce a lot of waste, more so than companies operating in other industries; it’s just the nature of the manufacturing industry. However, manufacturing companies can reduce their waste production by focusing on the principles of lean manufacturing.

Cutting back energy usage, opting for recycled materials, and embracing other green, Eco-friendly practices are just a few ways that companies can achieve this. A third goal of lean manufacturing is to reduce time. Companies that use lean manufacturing will naturally benefit from faster production times.

This is attributed to the fact that there’s less waste and greater overall efficiency in the workplace. Of course, faster production times will benefit a manufacturing company in several different ways: producing products faster means lower overhead and more revenue, making lean manufacturing well worth it in the long run.

Last but not least, the fourth and final goal of lean manufacturing is to reduce total costs. I guess you could say this goes hand-in-hand with reducing production time, because when products are produced faster, it leads to reduced total costs. Lowering costs allows companies to stay competitive, which is essential for success in the manufacturing industry.

To recap, the goals of lean manufacturing are to improve the quality of products, eliminate unnecessary waste, reduce production times and reduce total costs.
Hopefully, this will give you a better understanding of lean manufacturing and why it’s such a popular and widely used philosophy in today’s marketplace.

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