An effective approach being applied by a growing number of healthcare organizations is to apply the KAIZEN Lean principles.  The Kaizen Lean approach focuses on two major objectives: Customer satisfaction and Flow.  It is about transformation, culturally and technically, of the entire end-to-end process.  The positive and usually immediate impacts are the speed of service, the cost of service and the quality of service. 

The entire staff  (doctors, nurses, technicians, support staff) and the patients, all ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the impact of implementing Lean when it is done properly.  There is a tremendous change in the culture and thinking and everyone begins to work as a team.  The stresses are removed and the professionals are now able to focus on applying their skills instead of wasting their talents on non-value activities. We have worked with hospitals, family practice units, laboratories and medical supply facilities large and small.  By applying the principles of KAIZEN Lean in many healthcare environments, we have achieved amazing results within just a few weeks. 

These improvements have been gained by eliminating wasteful activities that over time have become part of the system freeing up time for staff to do real value added work. These improvements are good for everyone; patients, doctors, nurses and administrators, everyone benefits. The Healthcare sector requires the ultimate in client/patient satisfaction just by the nature of the service it provides to all of us.

The Healthcare system also must be available to all and that includes cost, quality, and service.  With the proper application of Kaizen Lean, these requirements can be met and in most cases expectations can be surpassed.Healthcare is the perfect environment to implement Lean and streamline complex processes.  The staff are motivated and they are passionate about giving the best to their patients/clients.  All they need is the necessary knowledge to transform their processes and their thinking in order to transform their processes and meet the challenges of the 21st century.The KAIZEN Institute can teach you how to adapt and apply the ‘right’ Lean thinking to your unique situations.  Call us or email us to find out more – www.ca.kaizen.com. We have many case studies that will demonstrate to you the potential of applying Lean to Healthcare (some of these include Registration, Laboratories, Food Preparation and Delivery, Hospital Maintenance, Surgery Preparation, Changeover time between patients and much more).