Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Going Lean in Health Care

Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Going Lean in Health Care: "Lean management principles have been used effectively in manufacturing companies for decades, particularly in Japan. IHI believes that lean principles can be — indeed, already are being — successfully applied to the delivery of health care.Lean thinking begins with driving out waste so that all work adds value and serves the customer's needs. Identifying value-added and non-value-added steps in every process is the beginning of the journey toward lean operations. Although health care differs in many ways from manufacturing, there are also surprising similarities: Whether building a car or providing health care for a patient, workers must rely on multiple, complex processes to accomplish their tasks and provide value to the customer or patient. Waste — of money, time, supplies, or good will — decreases value."
Applied commonsense !