A Systems Dynamics General Model for Supporting Transition to Lean Healthcare

Lean Healthcare, Kaizen and Six Sigma are rapidly transforming healthcare operations from 'new ideas' to a 'way of life.' At the same time, while the concepts of Lean are fairly straightforward, applying the tools to daily work can be counter-intuitive and thus require a credible model to be effectively applied. In a traditional lean approach, consultants take advantages from Value Stream Mapping, the adoption of 5-S and Visual Controls as well as batch reduction and cellular flow. Often these activities have taken a very long time to be adopted mostly due to internal change resistance, and lean implementation projects struggle for achieving their goals. The authors presents an innovative approach based on a reusable high-level model able to capture the relationship among costs, level of services and risks encountered in the transition from classical healthcare to lean health care organization. The paper proposes both methodology and a case study.