Lean Management Associated with Positive Hospital Performance
in May 2021 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety – April 27 2021
The researchers found that a higher degree of Lean implementation was significantly associated with:
- Lower adjusted inpatient expense per admission
- Lower 30-day unplanned readmission rate
- Appropriate/efficient use of imaging better than the national average – a measure of low-value care
- Higher Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) patient experience scores
Based on the findings, the authors conclude since Lean is an organization-wide, sociotechnical performance improvement system, the actual degree of implementation throughout an organization, as opposed to mere adoption, is more likely to be associated with positive performance on at least some measures.
