Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Evaluating Lean in healthcare

Evaluating Lean in healthcare Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present findings relating to how Lean is implemented in English hospitals. Design/methodology/approach – Lean implementation snapshots in English hospitals were conducted by content analysing all annual reports and web sites over two time periods, giving a thorough analysis of Lean's status in English healthcare. Findings – The article identifies divergent approaches to Lean implementation in English hospitals. These approaches are classified into a typology to facilitate an evaluation of how Lean is implemented. The findings suggest that implementation tends to be isolated rather than system‐wide. A second dataset conveys Lean implementation trajectory across the time period. These data signal Lean's increasing use by English hospitals and shows progression towards an increasingly systemic approach. Practical implications – Data were collected using content analysis methods, which relies on how “Lean” methods were articulated within the annual report and/or on the organisation's web site, which indicates approaches taken by hospital staff implementing Lean. Originality/value – This research is the first to examine more closely “how” Lean is implemented in English hospitals. The emergent typology could prove relevant to other public sector organizations and service organisations more generally. The research also presents a first step to understanding Lean thinking in the English NHS. This article empirically analyses Lean implementation in English hospitals. It identifies divergent approaches that allow inferences about how far Lean is implemented in an organisation. Data represent a baseline for further analysis so that Lean implementation can be tracked. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance Emerald Publishing

Evaluating Lean in healthcare

Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/evaluating-lean-in-healthcare-bjQYh1RMvX

References (53)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
0952-6862
DOI
10.1108/09526861311311418
pmid
23729126
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present findings relating to how Lean is implemented in English hospitals. Design/methodology/approach – Lean implementation snapshots in English hospitals were conducted by content analysing all annual reports and web sites over two time periods, giving a thorough analysis of Lean's status in English healthcare. Findings – The article identifies divergent approaches to Lean implementation in English hospitals. These approaches are classified into a typology to facilitate an evaluation of how Lean is implemented. The findings suggest that implementation tends to be isolated rather than system‐wide. A second dataset conveys Lean implementation trajectory across the time period. These data signal Lean's increasing use by English hospitals and shows progression towards an increasingly systemic approach. Practical implications – Data were collected using content analysis methods, which relies on how “Lean” methods were articulated within the annual report and/or on the organisation's web site, which indicates approaches taken by hospital staff implementing Lean. Originality/value – This research is the first to examine more closely “how” Lean is implemented in English hospitals. The emergent typology could prove relevant to other public sector organizations and service organisations more generally. The research also presents a first step to understanding Lean thinking in the English NHS. This article empirically analyses Lean implementation in English hospitals. It identifies divergent approaches that allow inferences about how far Lean is implemented in an organisation. Data represent a baseline for further analysis so that Lean implementation can be tracked.

Journal

International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 15, 2013

Keywords: Lean; Health care; Implementation; NHS England; National Health Service; United Kingdom

There are no references for this article.