Lean has been associated with manufacturing and its use in the factory floor. But people discover that Lean can also be used in the service industry.
An article on iSixSigma Healthcare shows us how Lean can be used in the operating room, for example. Here’s an excerpt of the article.
Recently one healthcare organization had a goal to decrease its turnover time in the operating room. The use of Lean tools eliminated waste, idle time and efforts that added no value from the patients’ or physicians’ perspective. Additionally, visual indicators were put in place to help reduce errors and rework. The team for this project was able to immediately reduce the turnover time by 50 percent – with minimal investment and without any changes to the hospital or departmental IT systems.
Lean Tools Have Healthcare Applications
In a Lean organization, processes and value streams associated with services, products and patient care are continually evaluated for waste. Such waste is then attacked with a vengeance using a number of industry-proven tools, such as:
- Pull systems and “flow” to improve throughput in areas such as labs and other places with paperwork-intensive processes.
- SMED techniques applied to changeover time improvements in operating rooms. (SMED comes from the manufacturing industry and stands for “single minute exchange of die.”)
- Poka-Yoke, aimed at reducing the opportunity for errors and omissions.
- 5-S, used to rearrange/reorganize nursing stations and other healthcare workplaces for greater efficiency.
