Doing More With Less: Lean Thinking And Patient Safety in Health Care

by Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (Foreword), Joint Commision Resources

'Lean thinking' is a Japanese quality improvement methodology first used in manufacturing. Its unique focus is on removing waste in a production or service process to improve operating efficiency and product value to the customer. Lean thinking has now made its way into health care and is receiving increasing attention in this arena, especially to improve patient safety. "Doing More with Lean Thinking and Patient Safety in Health Care" serves as an overview of this fresh topic, breaking down the concepts of the lean thinking process, and offering practical information and advice based on what has worked for various health care organizations. This practical, hands-on primer heralds an exciting new alternative for organizations in search of improvement objectives with the help of an established methodology. This book helps better understand the origins of and concepts behind lean thinking; learn through example how real-life organizations employed lean thinking before implementing similar approaches to their own processes; and, explore and consider other systems more completely.

131 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2006