How Can Lean Methods Be Implemented In Medical Practices?

It is essential that you work efficiently to maximize resources and improve quality. This is what lean is about. Lean thinking is a practice that aims to improve operations through continuous process improvement, standardizing processes, and eliminating waste.

Roger Gerard, an executive business partner with ThetaCare, a healthcare system in northeast Wisconsin, has over 38 years of experience in healthcare, manufacturing and service industries. This is what Gerard said about lean practices in medical practice at the Medical Group Management Association's Annual Conference in San Diego.

Gerard said that healthcare is a very expensive area which is becoming increasingly unaffordable for people to pay for. Thus, it is necessary that the costs of healthcare productions are reduced. This can be done only by removing the unnecessary wastes out of the processes and systems so that it creates great value for the people who are buying the products and services. He also said that it is important to analyze how the processes involved in the entire healthcare industry are affecting revenue, quality care and patient satisfaction.

On being asked how hospitals and other healthcare industries could involve lean to their practices, Gerard said that they will have to start with small experiments. Just like lean starts with simple things like getting organized and making tiny changes and then goes on to larger complex value-stream mapping, similarly, they too will have to put the entire healthcare industry under inspection and see how the processes are working together. They will need to make simple changes to the processes that are not going along well and then slowly and steadily, they can shift to faster growing solutions to help resolve the bigger problems. Gerard says that all this is important to maintain a standard practice to create better consistent quality.

While working on standardizing the processes, it is often seen that there is opposition from the members of the team. This is because they don’t understand that lean is a scientific method of improving processes. They find it as a method they are forced to follow by going against their own ways. If they understand the proper message that lean practices want to give, they will definitely begin experimenting and make changes in the process to get a better outcome.

When asked how he believes this lean transformation could be brought about, Gerard said that he would start by partnering with a physician and an administrator since both the clinical and administrative view points are necessary. It is important that the whole team starts experimenting together rather than individuals doing it their own way. He said that they could start small by looking at the supplies in practice and how they can improve in making sure that the staff has the supplies they need.

Gerard concluded that if every examination room is standardized and organized well, then it would become very easy for every member involved, may it be a physician or a nurse. Thus, lean is absolutely necessary in the healthcare industry too.