Is the hospital lean? A mathematical model for assessing the implementation of lean thinking in healthcare institutions

Narayanamurthy, Gopalakrishnan ORCID: 0000-0002-3119-5248 and Gurumurthy, Anand (2018) Is the hospital lean? A mathematical model for assessing the implementation of lean thinking in healthcare institutions. OPERATIONS RESEARCH FOR HEALTH CARE, 18. pp. 84-98.

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Abstract

Many academic and practice articles have been published in healthcare operations management literature documenting the experience of implementing lean thinking (LT) in healthcare institutions. But, none of them have developed a procedure for assessing the implementation of LT in healthcare institutions. Lack of assessment procedures make it difficult to evaluate the progress made during the implementation of LT. The current study attempts to address this gap by developing and demonstrating an assessment procedure to evaluate the extent of lean implementation in a healthcare institution To begin with, different lean tenets and elements applied in healthcare institutions were identified through a literature review. Following it, a Fuzzy-Logic Input Based Healthcare Institution Lean Implementation Assessment (FLB-HLIA) was developed and deployed in an Indian case hospital to compute “Healthcare Institution's Lean Implementation Index” (HLII). FLB-HLIA revealed that the case hospital has to focus on two lean tenets, namely establishing pull system, and seeking perfection, to improve its HLII. Assessment also revealed the lean elements that the case hospital can focus to upgrade its HLII. HLII can be used by practitioners to perform intra-benchmarking and inter-benchmarking of healthcare institutions. Results of FLB-HLIA provide a future action plan for the lean implementation journey of the healthcare institution by identifying the possible areas of improvement for future.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Is the hospital lean? A mathematical model for assessing the implementation of lean thinking in healthcare institutions journaltitle: Operations Research for Health Care articlelink: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orhc.2017.05.002 content_type: article copyright: © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Process improvement, Healthcare institution, Lean thinking, Implementation, Assessment, Fuzzy-logic, Lean implementation index
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	22 Oct 2018 10:50
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 01:15
DOI:	10.1016/j.orhc.2017.05.002
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3026891