A Lean Implementation Experience in a Uruguayan Healthcare Center

Experiencia de implementación de Lean en un Centro de Salud de Uruguay

Escuder, Matías - Tanco, Martín - Santoro, Anabella
Detalles Bibliográficos
2015
Lean
Mejora contínua
Urgencia pediátrica
Lean
Lean healthcare
Continuous improvement
Pediatric emergency room
Español
Universidad de Montevideo
REDUM
http://revistas.um.edu.uy/index.php/ingenieria/article/view/343
Acceso abierto
Atribución 4.0 Internacional
Resumen:
Sumario:Global concern about reducing healthcare expenditure aiming at improving the quality of health service provision has fostered the search for new tools to manage health care. Several international experiences have demonstrated that the use of Continuous Improvement and Lean Thinking in particular, can be adopted by the health care system achieving excellent outcomes. However, only a few experiences have been carried out in the region and none at a country level. This work summarizes the experience in a pediatric emergency room, where different Lean tools were applied. As a result, waiting time was reduced in more than 4 minutes and several opportunities were found to reduce it by another 20% within a short-term time horizon. In conclusion, great improvements can be achieved without additional capital investment.