Applying Lean In Health And Social Care Services

Organizations around the world are using Lean to redesign care and improve processes in a way that achieves and sustains meaningful results for patients, staff, physicians, and health systems. This book systematically describes how NHS Highland uses Lean principles and mindsets to improve safety, quality, access, and morale while reducing costs, and increasing capacity. Existing books often describe the gains obtained by using Lean methods, but often do not describe the underlying concepts and methods in details. Other books describe continuous improvement work, or specific techniques such as daily management in detail. This book seeks to occupy a middle space by providing an overview of the range of Lean ideas applicable to healthcare with sufficient examples and cases studies from NHS Highland and partner organizations so readers can see them in use and practice.

Typically entrenched and systemic, healthcare problems require the sort of comprehensive solutions that can only be addressed by a change in culture and a shift in thinking. Applying Lean in Healthcare: A Collection of International Case Studies demonstrates how honest appraisal, intelligent planning, and vigilant follow-up have led to dramatic imp

A growing, aging population; the rise to epidemic proportions of various chronic diseases; competing, often overlapping medical technologies; and of course, skyrocketing costs compounded by waste and inefficiency - these are just a few of the multifarious challenges currently facing healthcare delivery. An unexpected source of solutions is being imported from the manufacturing sector: lean thinking. Lean Principles for Healthcare presents a conceptual framework, management principles, and practical tools for professionals tasked with designing and implementing modern, streamlined healthcare systems or overhauling faulty ones. Focusing on core components such as knowledge management, e-health, patient-centeredness, and collaborative care, chapters illustrate lean concepts in action across specialties (as diverse as nursing, urology, and emergency care) and around the globe. Extended case examples show health systems responding to consumer needs and provider realities with equal efficiency and effectiveness, and improved quality and patient outcomes. Further, contributors tackle the gamut of technological, medical, cultural, and business issues, among them: Initiatives of service-oriented architecture towards performance improvement Adapted lean thinking for emergency departments Lean thinking in dementia care through smart assistive technology Supporting preventive healthcare with persuasive services Value stream mapping for lean healthcare A technology mediated solution to reduce healthcare disparities Geared toward both how lean ideas can be carried out and how they are being used successfully in the real world, Lean Principles for Healthcare not only brings expert knowledge to healthcare managers and health services researchers but to all who have an interest in superior healthcare delivery.

You likely don’t need any more tools, programs, or workshops to improve your hospital. What you need is a simple and consistent approach to manage problem-solving. Filling this need, this book presents a Lean management system that can help break down barriers between staff, directors, and administration and empower front-line staff to resolve their own problems. Lean Daily Management for Healthcare: A Strategic Guide to Implementing Lean for Hospital Leaders provides practical, step-by-step guidance on how to roll out Lean daily management in a hospital setting. Ideal for leaders that may feel lost in the transition process, the book supplies a roadmap to help you identify where your hospital currently is in its Lean process, where it’s headed, and how your role will change as you evolve into a Lean leader. Illustrating the entire process of implementing Lean daily management, the book breaks down the cultural progression of units into discreet, objectively measurable phases. It identifies what leaders at all levels of the organization must do to progress units into the next phase of development. Complete with case studies from different service areas in the hospital, the book explains how to link problem-solving boards together to achieve meaningful and measurable improvements in: the emergency department, the operating room, discharge times, clinics, quality, and patient satisfaction. After reading this book you will understand how consistent rounding, a few whiteboards, pen-and-paper data, and a focused effort on working the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle can help you build a common problem-solving bench strength throughout your organization—establishing the framework upon which future improvement can be built.

This book takes the reader through the process to plan, deliver, and follow-up a weeklong Lean Quality Improvement event, usually termed a ‘Rapid Improvement Event’ or ‘Rapid Process Improvement Workshop (RPIW).’ Drawing on the experience of conducting over 100 of these workshops, the book gives readers the information to plan and run their own event. It describes how RPIWs fit in to wider improvement processes and how the reader can maximize these processes in their own organization. These weeklong improvement events are popular in health and social care, but there are no textbooks available to support them. There are several books that describe the use of shorter Kaizen events in health care, but none that describe the process of delivering weeklong events. The events have a rhythm specific to the one-week format, and the book seeks to help people to make use of best practice and to avoid common problems. Based on the experiences of the authors, this book includes an introduction to Lean concepts linked to the relevant part of the process description; examples and templates of forms that can be used in workshops; and photographs of actual events.

Lean healthcare is waste elimination in every service area with the goal of reducing inventory, cycle time of service, and cost, so that high-quality patient care can be provided in a way that is as efficient, as effective, and as responsive as possible while retaining the financial integrity of a hospital. The Lean philosophy in healthcare demands a person’s attitude, in all aspects of care, understand the process which happens, observe it, and gather information in order to identify the root of an inefficiency of the process. In short, Lean and its emphasis on efficiency can be a critical tool in the management of health services in hospitals around the world. This book provides guidance and examples on how Lean principles can be implemented into the infrastructure and every day operations of a hospital from the emergency room to hospital facilities and maintenance. The book also demonstrates how Lean is the cultural commitment of organizations to implement the scientific method in designing, conducting, and improving work sustainably through teamwork, bringing in better value and satisfaction to the patient. It shortens the time between ordering and service delivery by eliminating waste from the service flow value. The author uses numerous examples of Lean thinking in various hospital departments with the overall of goal of taking that department from good to great.

Typically entrenched and systemic, healthcare problems require the sort of comprehensive solutions that can only be addressed by a change in culture and a shift in thinking. Organizations around the world are using Lean to redesign care and improve processes in a way that achieves and sustains meaningful results for patients, staff, physicians, and health systems. This book demonstrates how honest appraisal, intelligent planning, and vigilant follow-up have led to dramatic improvements in a variety of healthcare settings across the world. It teaches us how innovative organizations can find sustainable solutions to seemingly intractable problems by following a path guided by Lean Thinking. Lean methods may not solve every healthcare problem, but as these cases prove, changing a culture rather than personnel results in more effective sustainable change. This multi-authored book provides expert descriptions of Lean methods and their application in healthcare, written by the people who developed and tested the methods in healthcare settings. Each chapter brings together a description of the technique or approach, with examples of application in practice from the author’s own practice. Authors use an engaging approach to their narrative, with examples from their personal experience or engagement being described to illustrate the practical application of theoretic approaches. In painting a picture of the environment in which these tools and techniques have been applied, readers will understand the transferability to their own workplace environment. This will be an opportunity to tell real stories of the application of Lean in healthcare and give readers the opportunity to learn from people from across the world, on subjects on which they are acknowledged topic experts, based on day-to-day Lean practice.

Written to address the growing demand for Lean Six Sigma expertise, this text provides a step-by-step Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) process, that describes how to use the tools appropriate for each phase and provide data where tools can be practiced by students. Applying Lean Six Sigma in Health Care trains students on performance improvement techniques and current terminology so that they will be prepared to conduct Lean Six Sigma projects in large health care systems and support the physicians and nurses running these projects. With a focus on application, students learn and utilize the DMAIC process, by applying it to an improvement project that is carried through the text.