ABSTRACT
This chapter compares and contrasts the traditional and Lean-led approaches to hospital design. The following chapter goes into more detail on Lean-led design and presents a model.
During early design of their new hospital, clinicians at Owensboro Medical Health System (OMHS) in Kentucky became convinced they needed to buy two new CT scanners and plan large, additional spaces to accommodate them. They based this assumption on the best data they had-that, currently, with two CT scanners, they were turning away outpatient business and were barely keeping up with inpatient demand. But other data showed that the community was adequately served by the number of CT scanners it had. The forecast increase in demand did not seem to justify a 100% increase in the number of scanners at the new OMHS.
