Improving Wait Times at a Medical Oncology Unit

Are we prepared to implement a Lean philosophy within cancer-care service in Oman?

“…It can be argued that the majority of issues can be defined as waste and, thus, they are susceptible to improvement by applying Lean practices, as was carried out in the Medical Oncology Unit of Hospital Regional do Vale do Paraiba (HRVP), near Sao Paulo, Brazil. 18 The Lean team was identified and assembled, and a series of Lean training sessions and workshops were conducted. In addition, weekly meetings were scheduled to identify and evaluate quality improvements.…”

“…At this facility, the patients who had already fulfilled requirements for the day’s regimen could avoid waiting needlessly and be “pulled” to chemotherapy directly. 18 Finally, the new scheme of operations was evaluated using the same method. The observed results were recorded and compared to the projected outcomes; a significant improvement over the initial situation could be seen.…”

“…Importantly, according to the team, no additional resources were needed throughout the Lean transformation-except for the time used to make necessary calculations, conceive a plan of improvements, and rearrangement of the furniture on certain occasions. 18 While this example is not immediately applicable to Oman’s cancer–care facilities until necessary inquiries are made in each particular case, it provides several useful insights. First, it illustrates the impressive cost–efficiency of the suggested approach, in reality, no monetary outlay was associated with the entire experience.…”

Improving Hospital Performance by Use of Lean Techniques: An Action Research Project in Brazil

“…This includes Improving Performance of a Brazilian Hospital Using Lean 197 books on the implementation of Lean in U.S. hospitals, such as ThedaCare in Wisconsin (Toussaint and Gerard 2010) (2006) and Selau et al (2009) and the first empirical studies those by Pinto (2010) and Bertani (2012). Both of the theoretical studies concluded that Lean can be applied to the health care industry, and the empirical ones show results actually delivered in oncological units in two Brazilian hospitals.…”