EFFICIENCY IN HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS WITH THE POWER OF LEAN THINKING

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.22533/at.ed.15952225160511

• Palavras-chave: Lean Thinking; Organização de Saúde; Eficiência.

• Keywords: Lean Thinking; Healthcare Organization; Efficiency.

• Abstract:

  In contemporary management, the Lean Thinking (LT) philosophy is not a new strategic thought, it is a term used in industry to improve production capacity and omit waste in the process, but it has gained relevance in the last two decades with regard to its focus on health organizations, namely, so that each service faces the improvement of the performance of care provision and the efficiency of its processes.
  LT as a quality approach is gradually being introduced in hospitals around the world, but evidence of its impact on the efficiency of healthcare organizations is scarce. LT initiatives are social, complex and context-dependent, which requires a shift from cause-effect to conditional attributions for a better understanding of how LT works (Andersen, H. & Røvik, K., 2015). Explicit in the systematic approach to quality improvement through LT thinking is the importance of identifying and eliminating non-value-adding activities in work processes, especially the elimination of waste through the identification of non-value-adding activities, such as useless steps that add no value to the customer in terms of care (e.g. waiting times). 
  The main focus according to this line of thinking translates into zero defects, no delays, quality improvement and "just in time" (Andersen, H. & Røvik, K., 2015), which makes LT especially suitable for healthcare organizations. However, in practice, interventions are characterized by high variance, i.e. great heterogeneity of the context and the intervention itself, from the content to its application and the results of LT (Andersen, H. & Røvik, K., 2015).
  In LT management, the customer has a very important place and it is believed that in order to improve the system, considering the customer and increasing value, you have to forget about competitors and focus on yourself (Andersen, H. & Røvik, K. 2015). Within this framework, it becomes imperative to recognize waste and eliminate it, as a perfectionist approach to the cycle of continuous improvement. The importance of the organization as a whole must continually move confidently towards operational excellence, replacing the priority of health management. 
  The implementation of LT management in healthcare organizations promotes a major change in the provision of services and, of course, change requires management responsibility, otherwise various organizational and structural problems may arise in its implementation or the motivation to implement it will be lost (Al-Hakim, A. & Sevdalis, N., 2021). On this premise, strong leadership is needed to create motivation, drive change and lead continuous improvement projects.
  The elementary principles of LT are to add value for the customer, and thus the entire process that leads to this value must be "anchored" (Andersen, H. & Røvik, K. 2015), i.e. the entire process that leads to this value must be optimized and continuously improved. This improvement should not be focused on specific areas, but on the overall optimization of quality, costs, production time, customer satisfaction, safety and worker satisfaction (Andersen, H. & Røvik, K. 2015; Bucci, S. et al., 2016; Souza, D. et al., 2021).