Background: Patient satisfaction with outpatient pharmacy services at our institution was below the target level, due mainly to long waiting times. A lean management strategy to reduce patient waiting time and increase the satisfaction of both patients and staff was developed and implemented. Methods: The project was conducted in the outpatient pharmacy of a comprehensive cancer center in Amman, Jordan. The process started with formation of a multidisciplinary team and A3 problem-solving, which is a 10-step scientific method with measurable patient-centered outcomes. Average patient waiting time and level of patient satisfaction were compared before and after full implementation of the process. In addition, a survey was conducted among the pharmacy staff who worked in the outpatient pharmacy during the process to determine its impact on staff satisfaction. Results: Patient waiting time for prescriptions of fewer than 3 medications and of 3 medications or more decreased significantly (22.3 minutes vs 8.1 minutes, P < .001, and 31.8 minutes vs 16.1 minutes, P < .002, respectively), and patient satisfaction increased (62% vs 69%; P = .005) after full implementation of the project. The majority of the pharmacy staff reported that the process motivated them in their work and that both their jobs and their relationships with their managers and colleagues had improved. Conclusion: Application of lean management in an outpatient pharmacy was effective in reducing patient waiting time and improving the satisfaction of both patients and employees.
Lean management is one of the management systems that organizes the operational design. This system provides vital enhancements in health quality and safety, work effectiveness, and costs in the health sector (Hallam and Contreras, 2018).Hospitals that adopt lean techniques focus on the organization and management units, beginning with the realization that one approach can be utilized to enhance the patient consequences, which is the waste reduction process and efficient delivery of health care (A et al., 2019).
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