1. Lean Industries Series
Lean Healthcare
Lean Industries Series

2. Topics What is Lean? Why Lean Healthcare? What is Lean Healthcare?
Benefits of Lean Healthcare
Implementing Lean Healthcare
Leading Lean Hospitals
Summary
The Bottom Line

3. Why Lean Healthcare? The basic values of Lean Healthcare are to:
Put the customer/patient first
Define value in terms of the customer
Learn to see the 8 wastes of Healthcare
Make “less is more” the way to do things
To be a Lean Thinker means to constantly strive to improve by focusing on driving out waste in all its forms.
By attacking the ever present 8 wastes of Healthcare, greater value can be created with less effort.

4. Why Lean Healthcare?
Lean is based on reducing costs rather than raising prices or reducing services.
Source:

5. Why Lean Healthcare? Why implement lean into the healthcare industry
20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions per year in the US
500 incorrect surgical operations per week
50 new born babies dropped at birth per day
Enormous defect rate (estimated at nearly 45% by the New England Journal of Medicine, June 2003)
Cost escalation
60%-80% of costs can be reduced
Work and patient flow will improve
Patient as well as non-patient care processes will improve
Improves morale, productivity and bottom line
Source:

6. Types of Healthcare Waste PATIENT CARE EXAMPLE (ONCOLOGY)
Why Lean Healthcare?
Types of Healthcare Waste
TYPES
LABORATORY EXAMPLE
PATIENT CARE EXAMPLE (ONCOLOGY)
Defects
Mislabeled patient specimens
Wrong medication delivered to patient
Overproduction
“Just in case” blood tubes drawn from patients but not used
Patients seen by MD faster than can be treated by chemo causing delays
Transportation
Moving specimens long distances from receiving to testing
Long walks from MD clinic to chemotherapy
Waiting
Specimens waiting in batches for testing
Patients waiting due to schedule exceeding capacity
Inventory
Expired test reagents
Expired chemo drugs
Motion
Technologist waling due to poor layout
Nurses searching for missing supplies
Over processing
Time/date stamps on labels that are not used
Time spent creating a schedule that is not followed
Human Potential
Employee ideas not listened to
Source:

7. Summary American healthcare is in crisis
The industry is struggling with skyrocketing costs, poor quality, nursing shortages and employee dissatisfaction
Healthcare providers are realizing the imperative of improving quality and safety and eliminating waste as strategies
Lean healthcare is a way to transform your entire organization into a safe and high-quality, high-performing healthcare deliver system
Lean Healthcare is the “how to” of managing change and creating continuous improvement

8. There is no one lean best way – but several!
Summary
Lean thinking embeds quality at source into every process – with big implications for mortality and medical errors
It frees up the latent capacity in current systems – without requiring new capital
It releases more time to spend on solving the difficult cases
As you improve current processes you see new opportunities for designing alternative ways of delivering care – with different working practices and the right equipment
There is no one lean best way – but several!

9. Summary Lean healthcare doesn’t happen unless:
Someone is responsible for rethinking the whole process
Is supported by all those involved in running the process
The organization, with expert help, develops a future state plan that shows where to conduct breakthrough improvement events and where to use lean tools

10. The Bottom Line
Healthcare facilities must find ways to conserve resources in order to keep costs contained and reduced to ensure patient health and safety.
This can only be accomplished by reducing waste through continuous improvement
Lean Healthcare will improve profitability for your healthcare organization