A Practical Guide to Applying Lean Tools and Management Principles to Health Care Improvement Projects

Abstract

Manufacturing organizations have used Lean management principles for years to help eliminate waste, streamline processes, and cut costs. This pragmatic approach to structured problem solving can be applied to health care process improvement projects. Health care leaders can use a step-by-step approach to document processes and then identify problems and opportunities for improvement using a value stream process map. Leaders can help a team identify problems and root causes and consider additional problems associated with methods, materials, manpower, machinery, and the environment by using a cause-and-effect diagram. The team then can organize the problems identified into logical groups and prioritize the groups by impact and difficulty. Leaders must manage action items carefully to instill a sense of accountability in those tasked to complete the work. Finally, the team leaders must ensure that a plan is in place to hold the gains.

Applying lean thinking in the food supply chains: a case study

“…There is no more than scarce evidence on how to manage the change from defining value towards lean perfection (Simon and Canacari, 2012;Slomp et al 2009;Womack, 2004). For example, Wan and Chen (2009) proposed that after an organization makes a commitment to implement lean, the journey to lean includes three major activities: lean training, value stream mapping, and lean assessment.…”

Quality Improvement Intervention to Decrease Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation After Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery

“…14 Lean management has been used in many areas of medicine, including critical care. 12,13,15 In this study, we applied the principles of lean management to a cardiac surgery unit within a large academic medical center in order to decrease both the incidence of prolonged mechanical ventilation and the median time to extubation following CABG. This QI process was implemented as a response to the findings of an audit conducted by the prolonged ventilation task force (details of the task force provided later).…”

“…"Lean management," a key QI process, was first used to describe the Toyota business model. 12 The Toyota Production System was a model developed to eliminate waste and variability. 13 A key component of lean management is holding every individual responsible and accountable to use tools that will reduce variability in the work process.…”

Inter professional teamwork: A case study examining the practice patterns and perceptions of pediatric psychologists

“…Thus, a subset of the study authors reviewed the literature on collaborative care and then used an affinity diagram method [15] based on our own collaborative care experiences and our literature review to identify key domains (e.g "team dynamics", "logistics") that we would want to incorporate into our qualitative and quantitative assessment strategy. These domains were then refined within the larger group of authors which guided development of the survey and interview form that were the assessment tools used for the study.…”