ABSTRACT
Park Nicollet Health Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a few other organizations, including Thedacare in Wisconsin. The success of these implementations is well documented.*
Naturally, readers coming to the subject of Lean healthcare for the first time are often perplexed by the patently industrial point of view taken by Lean healthcare specialists. How can healthcare be treated as an industrial process? Isn’t medicine an art? Can healthcare processes be standardized when all patients are unique? In fact, medicine and healthcare practice are generally becoming more scientific or evidence based, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and deeming authorities such as the Joint Commission are quick to require adherence to standardized, evidence-based practices. Moreover, industrial engineering has long been applied to healthcare processes. Some readers may recall actor Clifton Web’s portrayal of the time-and-motion consultant Frank Gilbreth in the movie, Cheaper by the Dozen. The movie depicts Gilbreth’s groundbreaking time and motion studies of surgery in hospital operating rooms. In many ways, the practice of Lean healthcare continues in the tradition of Gilbreth’s time studies. The major difference is that the studies are not carried out by consultants; the studies are conducted by members of the healthcare team (clinicians and support staff), frequently with the voluntary participation of patients themselves.
