Lean In Healthcare
Lean Integrated
World-Class Healthcare
Lean Integrated provides extensive experience in the Lean Healthcare process. Our consultants are all seasoned healthcare providers including doctors, nurses, and executive leaders. Our learning and experience come directly from the Japanese therefore our training follow suit.
While the Lean transformational model tends to become more philosophical the further you ascend through the management ranks, each member of the organization owns specific tasks. We all have a role to play. The CEO is responsible for the strategic planning team. The CMO is responsible for surgical flow and improved outcomes. The CNO is responsible for an improved nurse to patient touch time and the CFO provides only information useful to the Lean implementation. When we say that Lean is a cultural transformation, we mean the very way we do business fundamentally changes. We learn to see each process through the eyes of our patients. We Measure ourselves only against world-class outcomes and we continually
reduce the waste inherent in our processes. The reduction in waste, improved outcomes, increased efficiency, and quality of care ultimately result in cost reductions.
The Lean Integrated transformational model combines didactic training, supported by hands on workshops, followed by immediate hands on application. Each process advances members of the team toward their next level of certification. All components of the Lean transformation are intricately woven to include support of the strategic plan, which identifies the focused value stream, which drives the improvement process, which provides the platform for training, real time process improvement, individual lean certification and most importantly, improved patient experience.
While each organization follows their own path toward continuous daily improvement, the issues and outcomes are quite consistent. The emergency department improves patient flow through the establishment of a fast track system. The surgical team reduces wait lists and increases outcomes through the reduction of waste and mistake proofing. The materials department eliminates the shortage of supplies through kanban implementation projects while the time to discharge is significantly reduced through multi-disciplinary bedside rounding. The list goes on, and is significantly different for each care discipline, however, the reduction of waste, focused on improved patient care consistently delivers the same results.
Lean is the westernized term for the Japanese word Kaizen. While kaizen loosely translates to "continuous daily improvement by each member of
your organization each day”, it does not capture a significant component of the Lean process, Kaikaku. The westernized term for kaikaku is Production Preparation Process or 3P. Where Kaizen is small incremental improvement, kaikaku is radical change. Like all Lean processes, the patient is at the center of the 3P process. Key to the process is understanding who our patients are, in what volume will they be arriving, and what are the specific steps in their care path. Six of the last eight hospital/clinics Lean integrated facilitated the 3P process during the design, saved the healthcare system a combined $289 million. All of those changes were implemented at the request of the patients and front line care staff. 3P is a significant cost reduction tool, but more importantly it improves the healthcare experience for both the patient and provider.
Lean takes hard work and commitment. Ask us, we will put you in contact with executives, doctors, nurses, ministers, whomever you may prefer to hear their Lean story. They will not tell you it was easy, they will all tell you it was worth it
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