Применение технологий бережливого производства для оптимизации работы скорой медицинской помощи в условиях распространения COVID‑19

Abstract

The pandemic of new coronavirus infection COVID‑19 has become a serious challenge for the national health systems, including Russia, setting ambitious goals aimed at preventing the spread of infection and maintaining the availability of medical care in environment of increasing pressure. The aim of the study was to develop, based on the principles of lean production, a set of measures to increase the availability of emergency medical services for patients diagnosed with or suspected of a new coronavirus infection COVID‑19 in the Tomsk Region. Standard tools of lean manufacturing are applied to the work process of the admission department of the respiratory center in RSBHI «Medical sanitary station № 2». As a result of implementation of target state map, which provides for the optimization of process of transferring a patient diagnosed or suspected of a new coronavirus infection COVID‑19 to admission department, a positive dynamics of local (5.4 times increase in the proportion of calls completed within 15 minutes after the patient was delivered to the admission department) and system (an increase of 1.3 times in the proportion of calls with the time the ambulance team reaches the patient within 20 minutes) indicators of the ambulance service was achieved. The study confirms the effectiveness of lean manufacturing tools for optimizing the work of ambulance and allows us to recommend them for use in a pandemic and other risks of emergency.