What is Lean Healthcare?

Lean healthcare is the successful adaptation of Toyota way principles to healthcare processes and management.  These are universally applicable principles such as the continuous removal of waste and non value added, built-in quality through "stop and fix" mentality and the discipline or root cause problem solving, and ongoing improvement through empowerment and respectful people.

Lean healthcare is increasingly recognized as a key strategy for modern healthcare organizations, with notable successes at Virginia Mason Medical Center, Thedacare, Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, and other pioneers.

The Impact of Lean Thinking 

Case after case in manufacturing and service industries have shown that quality improves, productivity improves, inventories are shrunk, and lead-times are reduced.  As costs are reduced and market share grows, profits improve.

  • Quality Improvement of 50% – 99%
  • Productivity Improvement of 30% - 80%
  • Inventory Reduction of 50% - 80%
  • Lead-times reduced by 50% - 85%

Lean Enterprise Values

Now these principles and tools are available to health service organizations in the form of Lean Healthcare. The basic values of Lean Healthcare and Lean Enterprise are:

  • Put the customer (patient) first
  • Define value in terms of the customer
  • Learn to see the7 Wastes of Healthcare
  • Make “Less is More” the way we 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 7 Wastes of Healthcare, greater value can be created with less effort.

Lean Healthcare is a system that allows you to develop, improve, and sustain superb processes.

Lean Healthcare brings the tools that have been used, refined, and proven through over 50 years of use in manufacturing and service industries to the healthcare environment.

Contact us at Gemba Research to learn how to take the next step toward Lean Healthcare.

Gemba Kaizen in Healthcare

Lean Healthcare achieves results rapidly by allowing workers to focus the improvement attention on the actual place where the value is created (Gemba) and using a system of team based rapid improvement (Kaizen).

  • Balance workload to customer demand (Takt Time & Cycle Time)
  • Connect value added processes (Process Flow)
  • Become responsive to customer demand (Pull System)
  • Optimize the entire process, not single processes (Toyota Production System)

The Gemba Kaizen process realizes that healthcare practitioners are the experts at what they do. Dramatic results are achieved through the Gemba Kaizen process combining the expertise of our Lean Thinking trainers with the relevant medical experience of your Lean Healthcare team.

How Can a Tool from Industry Apply to Healthcare?

The goal of a Lean Enterprise is to establish processes that allow people to execute them flawlessly every day. A process is simply a set of defined and related tasks that are performed to achieve a defined outcome.