The sustainable improvement of patient flow in an emergency treatment centre using Lean

Dickson, Eric W.; Anguelov, Zlatko; Bott, P; Nugent, Andrew; Walz, David F.; Singh, Sabi

doi:10.1504/ijssca.2008.021841

Cited by 14 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Numerous studies have described the implementation of Lean methodologies in the emergency department (ED) setting [3,28,29]. Specifically, Lean methodologies have been utilized in the ED to redesign processes [30•, 31-35], improve patient access and flow [36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47], reduce wait times [48][49][50], and to address issues such as errors and ED overcrowding [51]. Our institution has applied Lean methodologies to numerous improvement projects, impacting both clinical and operational practice, summarized in Table 3.…”

Section: Lean In the Emergency Departmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Patient Flow Using Lean Methodology: an Emergency Medicine Experience

Rutman

Stone

Reid

et al. 2015

Curr Treat Options Peds

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Lean I Quality improvement I Patient flow I Emergency medicine I Pediatrics I Continuous performance improvement I Process I Waste I Value Opinion statement In today's rapidly changing health care milieu, organizations are expected to continuously improve the quality of care delivered to an expanding population of patients. To do so, they need a framework for developing, testing and implementing changes. Lean provides a methodology to engage workers and leaders to identify waste in a process, develop standards, implement a change, assess the results of that change, review next steps, and repeat the process. This can be successfully accomplished in the highly variable world of emergency medicine and can help health care providers be more productive, engaged, and satisfied while enabling patients to receive the value-added care they want and expect. Successful implementation of Lean or any other improvement framework requires that the hospital and medical leadership are all strong supporters of the methodology, speak the same process improvement language and are able to generate support and resources for operation-wide forward movement.

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Section: Lean In the Emergency Departmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Patient Flow Using Lean Methodology: an Emergency Medicine Experience

Rutman

Stone

Reid

et al. 2015

Curr Treat Options Peds

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Some studies on the effects of Lean methods to improve the internal efficiency of Emergency Departments (ED) have shown positive outcomes (Dickson et al, 2008; Holden, 2011; Mazzocato et al, 2012). Most research in this area includes efficiency metrics such as increased patient “throughput” (Holden, 2011) and alleviating “exit block,” which occurs when patients in the ED have been admitted to the hospital but cannot move due to lack of available inpatient beds (Henderson & Boyle, 2014; Pines et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nurses’ Perspectives on Lean Redesigns to Patient Flow and Inpatient Discharge Process Efficiency

Nicosia

Park

Gray

et al. 2018

Global Qualitative Nursing Research

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As hospitals around the world increasingly face pressure to improve efficiency, “Lean” process improvement has become a popular approach to improving patient flow. In this article, we examine nurses’ perspectives on the implementation of Lean redesigns to the inpatient discharge process. We found that nurses experienced competing demands and tensions related to their time and professional roles and responsibilities as a result of Lean. Four main themes included (a) addressing the needs of individual patients, while still maintaining overall patient flow; (b) meeting discharge efficiency targets while also achieving high patient satisfaction scores; (c) “wasting time” to save time; and (d) the “real” work of providing clinical care versus the “Lean” work of process improvement. Our findings highlight the importance of soliciting hospital nurses’ perspectives when implementing Lean process improvements to improve efficiency and patient flow.

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“…One of the enablers of the project is the involvement of the hospital managers in a multidiscipline team. As reported in the literature (eg, Dickson et al 16 ), without a supporting leadership and an adequate social context, the success of the lean management adoption can be compromised and hardly sustainable for long time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying lean management to reduce radiology turnaround times for emergency department

Verbano

Crema

2019

Health Planning & Management

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Summary Given the high impact of emergency department (ED) on the quality of care delivered by an hospital, and the many challenges it is facing (eg, overcrowding, excessive waiting time, cost containment, and increasing demand from patients), innovative managerial approaches should be adopted in order to develop safer and more efficient healthcare in this setting. The current study focuses on an application of lean thinking to reduce radiology turnaround times for ED, with the final aim to highlight the key factors enabling the adoption of lean thinking in this context. A research framework has been developed in the literature to analyse lean projects in healthcare and it has been adapted to study the case selected in an Italian hospital. In particular, organizational aspects, phases, and activities of the applied methodology, tools and procedures, and the achieved outcomes have been analysed. The study reports how radiology turnaround times for ED can be significantly reduced applying lean management principles and techniques. The achieved results contribute not only to comply with the regulation, but also to enhance the quality of care delivered to the patient; moreover, staff communication, involvement, and process awareness are favoured by the realization of similar projects promoting the diffusion of a lean culture.

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The sustainable improvement of patient flow in an emergency treatment centre using Lean

Cited by 14 publications

References 10 publications

Improving Patient Flow Using Lean Methodology: an Emergency Medicine Experience

Improving Patient Flow Using Lean Methodology: an Emergency Medicine Experience

Nurses’ Perspectives on Lean Redesigns to Patient Flow and Inpatient Discharge Process Efficiency

Applying lean management to reduce radiology turnaround times for emergency department

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