ABSTRACT
Lean is both a tool set and a management system. Lean is a method for continuous improvement and employee engagement. Lean is very different from traditional cost-cutting, which is often done by slashing hospital budgets, head count, and services. Human development, in the Lean approach, means putting in place "a solid framework for cultivating capable leaders and for providing employees with necessary practical skills." Many hospitals have an existing philosophy about patients and employees that is conducive to adopting the tools and management system of Lean. Leadership and management skills are important for implementing Lean methods. Leading hospitals are using Lean principles to completely redesign or radically overhaul their processes and space, working to create this stability. A hospital could view the timeline described by Taiichi Ohno as, for example, the time between a patient feeling symptoms and actually receiving care, ending at the point when the hospital gets paid.
