Nowadays, consumers are becoming more aware about new technologies and latest trends. They want everything perfect and on time in every field, whether it is business, education, entertainment, and healthcare. People will not spend their valuable money or time on […]
Lean Healthcare
Delivery of healthcare systems to people who find them unaffordable in their present manifestations has given rise to a new concept called lean healthcare. A philosophy based on quality improvement in healthcare services while simultaneously keeping the costs controllable, lean healthcare has found acceptance in developed as well as developing countries.
While developing countries saw this philosophy as a necessity because of the large number of people who found it difficult to access basic healthcare services, developed countries that spent a large percentage of their GDP on healthcare services saw this as a means of improving the contemporary methods of ensuring optimal healthcare for everyone.
Healthcare providers are becoming acutely aware that eliminating waste while improving quality and safety are proving to be effective strategies for responding to the challenges in healthcare systems. Besides eliminating waste in medical practices, healthcare professionals are now striving to get rid of cumbersome information technology systems that increase the cost of services to patients. Scientific observations and experiments have now made it possible to reduce inadvertent errors and oversights, which inflated expenditure and posed a risk to patient safety. Lean principles in healthcare are emerging rapidly by creating a system that is truly responsive to the needs of the patients.
Identifying value-added and non-value-added steps in every process is the beginning of lean operations, whether in a manufacturing sector or the healthcare sector. To put it in simple words, Lean management begins with removing waste. When the concept is applied