Healthcare organizations around the world have faced difficult situations over the past 15 to 20 years. While there have been breathtaking advances in disease eradication, treatments and cures together with multiple increases in spending in Healthcare it is the perception of the public that the advances are not fast enough and provided efficiently enough. This is a dilemma for a large number of healthcare providers and leads to frustration among the healthcare workers and general public. In many instances there would appear to be no solution to this dilemma only allocate more expenditure to the problem and hope it goes away. This has been tried in many countries, resulting in huge increases in healthcare spending with very little improvements resulting. Patients are still spending a lot longer sitting in queues’ than being treated by their doctor.

There has to be another way, and there is.

A number of Healthcare organizations are in the process of adopting and implementing Lean principles in their organizations that would have traditionally been implemented only in manufacturing environments with phenomenal success. Many of the Healthcare managers are discovering that the same principles also apply to their environment that apply to Manufacturing environments and by tailoring the solutions to their needs, they achieve the same or even more dramatic breakthrough successes as manufacturing organizations do.

It has been universally agreed that there are many inefficiencies built into the Healthcare systems which do not add value, cause delays for patients and result in less than satisfactory experiences. A number of Healthcare organizations have now begun to look at value-add versus non-value-add activities and have begun to eliminate waste in their organizations. It is true that Healthcare practitioners are not factory workers and patients are not widgets, however there are many parallels between the two. Both have defined work flows with well defined start and finish, resulting in widgets being manufactured or a healthier patient leaving a healthcare centre.

There are defined steps Lean practitioners use when applying Lean to Manufacturing environments. These same steps have and can be applied to Healthcare organisations with the same breakthrough results. These steps can vary from situation to situation depending on the current state starting position and complexity of the process. A typical sequence of steps is as follows;

• Secure Management support for the Lean transformation as this will require considerable time resources particularly at the early stages of its implementation
• Identify the key players who will initiate and drive the changes through the organization.
• Provide training for the key players on the Principles of Lean and Lean tools
• Under the guidance of an experienced practitioner, prepare a current state “Value Stream Map” to document the current status
• Develop an “Ideal State Map”
• Develop a “Future State Map” predicting what the organisation will look like in 6 or 12 months time
• Identify the actions necessary to move from the current state to the future state
• Repeat this process on a regular basis implementing a culture of continuous improvement in the organization aiming at the ideal state or perfection.
• Involve an ever increasing number of people in the process as it evolves for accelerated results
  

There are many Lean tools that are applicable to Healthcare situations. The following is a listing of the more significant ones that have already been tried and tested with amazing results achieved;

• Value Stream Mapping
• Hoisin planning
• Kaizen events
• Identifying and eliminating waste
• Root cause analysis
• 5S Workplace organization
• Visual techniques
  

There have already been many documented examples of successes at implementing Lean in Healthcare environments. However it is important to understand that for a truly successful outcome the culture of the organisation needs to be reviewed and changed and this takes considerable effort, time and professional support to implement successfully and sustainably.

Lean Business Systems has extensive experience in the Healthcare sector and can take you through the many successes achieved to date. Lean Business Systems will also provide you with a free assessment of your current state and an assessment of what it will take to transform your organization to Lean using the many tools available.

For further information please CLICK HERE.

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