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Lean Hospitals, LLC was established in March 2005 to provide lean training, guided implementation, facilitation, and consulting services exclusively to hospitals and other healthcare organizations. Our unique approach to organizational lean transformation focuses on making the organization self sufficient as opposed to being reliant on the knowledge and experience of an outside consultant.
A Lean transformation does not succeed in some organizations and fail in others because of sheer luck or desire alone. The key to a successful lean transformation is proper implementation. The organization must adhere to an established implementation model. This model must provide strategic direction relative to improvements to the care delivery system while concurrently establishing a lean culture and system thinking. Our model for lean implementation is illustrated in above. The model begins with the hospital's strategic plan and cascades toward organizational transformation via a quality culture and an enhanced care delivery system. The model is divided into two parallel paths, the path to the right is the culture-creating path, which engenders a learning/action-taking organization where making problems obvious, continuous improvement and empowerment become standard operating procedure. The path to the left is the system-creating path, which provides strategic direction for lean implementation and focuses on creating flow through the strategically identified value streams by eliminating barriers, reducing inventory, and leveling the process. These two paths are interdependent, meaning that the benefits experienced in one path are dependent on the proper execution of the other path. Both of these paths are equally critical to creating a lean enterprise and attempting to execute one without regard for the other will not produce the desired outcome. This cannot be over emphasized. A lean culture and systems thinking are equally critical to becoming a lean organization.
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