Journal of Nursing & Patient CareISSN: 2573-4571

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Patient-centered lean in healthcare superseding industrys narrow efficiency focus


Richard J Schonbergerm

USA

: J Nurs Patient Care

Abstract


This presentation calls for healthcare to turn away from manufacturing’s dominant lean emphasis, and do it its own, better, way. Because of the distance from end customers in the industrial sector (where few people ever see a real customer), its typical focus is inward—on operational efficiency through waste elimination. The nature of healthcare—with customers up close and immediate—calls for elevating lean’s efforts toward customer-focused effectiveness: flexibly quick, “queue-less” response along the multiple flow paths leading to and involving patients. (Waste elimination, though a valued methodology easily taught and beneficially used by work forces, should be seen as ancillary to the greater purpose.) A case study in which widely scattered heart-attack patients were transported to a central treatment hospital in a system-wide, highly coordinated program of quick response, is illustrative. This presentation will show that the keys to lean effectiveness in healthcare—including high rates of saving lives—boil down to just a few key methodologies, each focused on quick response and patient safety. Lean healthcare, when practiced in this way, draws in and can retain (usually weak) executive support, fostering status as a fixture in strategic management of the enterprise.

Biography


E-mail: sainc17@centurylink.net

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