New Approaches and Trends in Health Care

Abstract

Background: Over the years a variety of process improvement methodologies have been proposed for health care delivery and Lean healthcare is one such method. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of the existing literature on Lean health care. It seeks to describe how this concept has being applied and to assess how trends and methods of approach in Lean health care have evolved over the years. The objective is to demonstrate the scientific knowledge developed on Lean thinking in health care. Design/methodology/approach: Health care systems have begun to employ Lean methods, with reports of improvements appeared in the literature. The paper surveys the applications of Lean health care in the current literature by presenting the success stories and limitations of Lean production in various health care organizations. We start from the key concepts of Lean thinking and how these concepts can be applied in the health care environment.Findings: Lean health care is a novel approach to deliver improved care services to patients, and we believe that some branches like emergency medicine, drug dispensing process in the health care sector can achieve high level of success by using this approach. It appears that there is an agreement about the potential of lean health care, but before large-scale implementation it is necessary to evaluate the true ability of Lean interventions to improve healthcare delivery. It still remains a challenge for specialists in the field to evaluate lean health care under a critical perspective.