What Is Lean Healthcare?

To be honest about it, the healthcare scenario in America today is in turmoil. True, medical science has reached remarkable levels, but along with this has come the skyrocketing costs, inadequate yet expensive nursing facilities, and overall employee dissatisfaction. No wonder, many Americans are now seeking treatment elsewhere, irrespective of how deeply and desperately the Obama administration is trying to woo them back. The only ray of hope it seems is in lean healthcare.

But do not let yourself into believing that lean healthcare means fewer medicares. It actually stands for elimination of cumbersome medical reports that often bewilders the medics, leads to worker frustrations, and inadvertent human errors. So, it can be said that lean healthcare simplifies the process to help everyone involved. Studies have revealed that most improvements do not require costly or extensive high-tech fixes. Appropriately designed interactions based on patient observations and cost effective experiments can often bring about a cure.

As in other lean-Six sigma applications (such as in industries) lean healthcare also gives emphasis on reduction of waste in providing service not only to the patient, but also to others related to the medical profession. For instance, it will help eliminate repeated procedures where a patient’s blood pressure is first taken by the nurse, as also by the attending physician for the second time during the actual examination. Lean healthcare also ensures that all necessary investigating tools and appliances are kept ready in the examination room.

Lean healthcare can go a long way towards improving a wide array of operative procedures in most institutions that include the following.

• Admitting and discharging patients quickly
• Keeping medical reports
• Internal transferring of patient from one department to another
• Inventory (medical supplies) control
• Administrative paraphernalia resulting in billing complexity
• Changing of shift for medical and non-medical staff
• HR/Hiring processes
• A/R and A/P Processes and many more.

Incidentally, the lean healthcare system uses several tools for identifying wasted efforts, of which VSM or Value Stream Mapping is regarded as quite significant. It displays, through a physical graph, the delivery of a service or procedure to identify the wasted efforts vis-à-vis the steps that fail to add value to the results. An article that was published on the April 2005 edition of the ‘American Society of Quality Progress’ throws light on the topic. It clearly enunciated how a team of nurses and pharmacists in a hospital managed to reduce the waiting time and errors in delivery of medication to patients by practicing some of the principles of this method.