Is the hospital lean? A mathematical model for assessing the implementation of lean thinking in healthcare institutions

Publication date: September 2018Source: Operations Research for Health Care, Volume 18Author(s): Gopalakrishnan Narayanamurthy, Anand GurumurthyAbstractMany academic and practice articles have been published in healthcare operations management literature documenting the experience of implementing lean thinking (LT) in healthcare institutions. But, none of them have developed a procedure for assessing the implementation of LT in healthcare institutions. Lack of assessment procedures make it difficult to evaluate the progress made during the implementation of LT. The current study attempts to address this gap by developing and demonstrating an assessment procedure to evaluate the extent of lean implementation in a healthcare institution To begin with, different lean tenets and elements applied in healthcare institutions were identified through a literature review. Following it, a Fuzzy-Logic Input Based Healthcare Institution Lean Implementation Assessment (FLB-HLIA) was developed and deployed in an Indian case hospital to compute “Healthcare Institution’s Lean Implementation Index” (HLII). FLB-HLIA revealed that the case hospital has to focus on two lean tenets, namely establishing pull system, and seeking perfection, to improve its HLII. Assessment also revealed the lean elements that the case hospital can focus to upgrade its HLII. HLII can be used by practitioners to perform intra-benchmarking and inter-benchmarking of healthcare institutions. Results of FLB-HLIA prov...

Source: Operations Research for Health Care - July 5, 2018 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: research