Go ‘lean’ to save health service
The adoption of what is termed “Lean Thinking” can, I believe, help to deliver the necessary improvements in our hospitals without impacting on the patient experience. The Japanese car maker, Toyota, initiated lean manufacturing with the development of the Toyota Production System (TPS) in the 1960s and was quickly established as a method for highly effective production of cars. While sceptics are right when they say that “patients are not cars”, medical care is delivered in highly complex organisations with hundreds of interacting processes. Forward-thinking healthcare organisations are at the forefront in this by demonstrating that “lean” can reduce process waste in healthcare with results comparable to other industries and specifically aligned to the health and well-being of the patient.
The upcoming election will showcase the political party’s strategies for healthcare in Ireland. Regardless of the overall strategy, there remains an urgency to streamline the core patient and administrative pathways and the best way to do that, I believe, is by adopting an integrated lean approach in all our hospitals. People in our healthcare system need to be listened to, trained and up-skilled in this new way of doing things, but once that is done, there is no reason for a hospital not to become self-sufficiently “lean” in a relatively short time. The benefit to the patient should be both rapid and very obvious.
Joe Aherne
Leading Edge Group
Cobh, Co Cork
