Application of lean thinking to health care: issues and observations.

T. Joosten; I. Bongers; R. Janssen

Commentary

Application of lean thinking to health care: issues and observations.

September 23, 2009

Joosten T, Bongers I, Janssen R. International Journal for Quality in Health Care. 2009;21(5).

View more articles from the same authors.

This commentary explores operational and sociotechnical aspects of applying lean thinking as a management approach to improve quality in health care.

Free full text

Available at

PubMed citation

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

Nurses' attitudes to a medical emergency team service in a teaching hospital.

December 20, 2006

The impact of trained assistance on error rates in anaesthesia: a simulation-based randomised controlled trial.

February 25, 2009

A patient safety checklist for the cardiac catheterisation laboratory.

January 7, 2015

Electronic health record-based triggers to detect adverse events after outpatient orthopaedic surgery.

November 18, 2015

Point prevalence of surgical checklist use in Europe: relationship with hospital mortality.

February 25, 2015

Drug error in anaesthetic practice: a review of 896 reports from the Australian Incident Monitoring Study database.

April 21, 2005

Survey of medication documentation at hospital discharge: implications for patient safety and continuity of care.

April 30, 2008

A systematic review of the effectiveness of interruptive medication prescribing alerts in hospital CPOE systems to change prescriber behavior and improve patient safety.

September 27, 2017

Healthcare in a land called PeoplePower: nothing about me without me.

March 6, 2005

Effect of day of the week on short- and long-term mortality after emergency general surgery.

April 5, 2017

Negligent care and malpractice claiming behavior in Utah and Colorado.

March 27, 2005

Content analysis of team communication in an obstetric emergency scenario.

September 16, 2009

Understanding the effect of resident duty hour reform: a qualitative study.

August 13, 2014

Cognitive errors in diagnosis: instantiation, classification, and consequences.

March 6, 2005

Reducing adverse drug events: lessons from a breakthrough series collaborative.

March 27, 2005

A prospective controlled trial of the effect of a multi-faceted intervention on early recognition and intervention in deteriorating hospital patients.

May 12, 2010

Gaps in the continuity of care and progress on patient safety.

March 6, 2005

Patient safety begins with proper planning: a quantitative method to improve hospital design.

November 24, 2010

Analysis of unintended events in hospitals: inter-rater reliability of constructing causal trees and classifying root causes.

July 8, 2009

Do associations between staff and inpatient feedback have the potential for improving patient experience? An analysis of surveys in NHS acute trusts in England.

October 28, 2009

From aviation to medicine: applying concepts of aviation safety to risk management in ambulatory care.

March 6, 2005

What are covering doctors told about their patients? Analysis of sign-out among internal medicine house staff.

August 19, 2009

Prospective risk analysis of health care processes: a systematic evaluation of the use of HFMEA in Dutch health care.

July 15, 2009

Evaluation of the implementation of the alert issued by the UK National Patient Safety Agency on the storage and handling of potassium chloride concentrate solution.

June 29, 2005

Association of clinical nursing work environment with quality and safety in maternity care in the United States.

November 11, 2020

Healthcare provider complaints to the emergency department: a preliminary report on a new quality improvement instrument.

November 29, 2006

Estimating hospital deaths due to medical errors: preventability is in the eye of the reviewer.

March 6, 2005

Do hospital boards matter for better, safer, patient care?

March 8, 2017

Distractions and the anaesthetist: a qualitative study of context and direction of distraction.

May 22, 2013

Managing competing demands through task-switching and multitasking: a multi-setting observational study of 200 clinicians over 1000 hours.

February 26, 2014

Sign-out snapshot: cross-sectional evaluation of written sign-outs among specialties.

January 15, 2014

The cost of pneumonia after acute stroke.

June 13, 2007

Differences in medication reconciliation interventions between six hospitals: a mixed method study.

June 29, 2022

Patient-specific electronic decision support reduces prescription of excessive doses.

May 26, 2010

Patient safety climate in hospitals: act locally on variation across units.

June 30, 2010

Variability in the measurement of hospital-wide mortality rates.

March 19, 2014

Handover after pediatric heart surgery: a simple tool improves information exchange.

June 1, 2011

Changes to supervision in community pharmacy: pharmacist and pharmacy support staff views.

June 26, 2013

Task errors by emergency physicians are associated with interruptions, multitasking, fatigue and working memory capacity: a prospective, direct observation study.

January 31, 2018

Unintended transplantation of three organs from an HIV-positive donor: report of the analysis of an adverse event in a regional health care service in Italy.

September 8, 2010

September 2, 2009

Communication in the operating theatre.

January 22, 2014

Educational interventions to reduce prescribing errors.

May 7, 2008

The impact of health information technology on the management and follow-up of test results—a systematic review.

May 8, 2019

Improving our understanding of multi-tasking in healthcare: drawing together the cognitive psychology and healthcare literature.

March 29, 2017

The 'go-between' study: a simulation study comparing the 'Traffic Lights' and 'SBAR' tools as a means of communication between anaesthetic staff.

September 21, 2016

Patient safety in inpatient psychiatry: a remaining frontier for health policy.

January 9, 2019

Duty hours, quality of care, and patient safety: general surgery resident perceptions.

October 3, 2012

Laney's story: the problem of delayed diagnosis of pediatric stroke.

April 24, 2019

Non-technical skills in the intensive care unit.

April 26, 2006

Factors influencing doctors' ability to calculate drug doses correctly.

February 14, 2007

Human factor in cardiac surgery: errors and near misses in a high technology medical domain.

March 27, 2005

From research to practice: factors affecting implementation of prospective targeted injury-detection systems.

June 8, 2011

Missed diagnosis of cancer in primary care: insights from malpractice claims data.

August 7, 2019

Identification of in-hospital complications from claims data. Is it valid?

March 6, 2005

'Not another safety culture survey': using the Canadian patient safety climate survey (Can-PSCS) to measure provider perceptions of PSC across health settings.

November 13, 2013

Medication safety in the operating room: literature and expert-based recommendations.

February 22, 2017

Organisational culture: variation across hospitals and connection to patient safety climate.

January 5, 2011

Creating effective quality-improvement collaboratives: a multiple case study.

February 16, 2011

Patient safety knowledge and its determinants in medical trainees.

June 20, 2007

Interdisciplinary communication in the intensive care unit.

February 21, 2007

The impact of rapid response team on outcome of patients transferred from the ward to the ICU: a single-center study.

August 28, 2013

Survey shows that at least some physicians are not always open or honest with patients.

February 22, 2012

Association of changing hospital readmission rates with mortality rates after hospital discharge.

August 9, 2017

Surgical safety checklists: do they improve outcomes?

June 20, 2012

Use of strategies from high-reliability organisations to the patient hand-off by resident physicians: practical implications.

August 12, 2009

NICU medication errors: identifying a risk profile for medication errors in the neonatal intensive care unit.

January 20, 2010

Racial differences in antibiotic prescribing by primary care pediatricians.

March 20, 2013

Disclosing large scale adverse events in the US Veterans Health Administration: lessons from media responses.

April 13, 2016

Is it possible to identify risks for injurious falls in hospitalized patients?

August 29, 2012

May 26, 2021

Errors in the administration of intravenous medications in hospital and the role of correct procedures and nurse experience.

July 13, 2011

The surgical safety checklist and patient outcomes after surgery: a prospective observational cohort study, systematic review and meta-analysis.

March 7, 2018

Pharmacovigilance using clinical notes.

May 1, 2013

Five-year audit of adherence to an anaesthesia pre-induction checklist.

March 30, 2022

Diagnostic errors by medical students: results of a prospective qualitative study.

December 13, 2017

An epistemology of patient safety research: a framework for study design and interpretation.

June 18, 2008

Adverse events experienced while transferring the critically ill patient from the emergency department to the intensive care unit.

November 8, 2006

Patient safety strategies: a call for physician leadership.

March 13, 2013

Dangers of diagnostic overshadowing.

June 5, 2019

Interruptions and multi-tasking: moving the research agenda in new directions.

September 10, 2014

New technologies in radiation therapy: ensuring patient safety, radiation safety and regulatory issues in radiation oncology.

November 12, 2008

Improving health care quality and safety for people with disabilities: an interview with Lisa Iezzoni.

June 28, 2006

Safe operation as a social construct.

January 1, 1999

The effect of computerized provider order entry systems on clinical care and work processes in emergency departments: a systematic review of the quantitative literature.

May 22, 2013

All CLEAR? Preparing for IT downtime.

September 28, 2016

A human factors framework and study of the effect of nursing workload on patient safety and employee quality of working life.

February 2, 2011

Diagnostic errors that lead to inappropriate antimicrobial use.

June 3, 2015

Crisis management during anaesthesia: the development of an anaesthetic crisis management manual.

June 22, 2005

More than just crushing: a prospective pre-post intervention study to reduce drug preparation errors in patients with feeding tubes.

April 1, 2015

Tracing the foundations of a conceptual framework for a patient safety ontology.

September 22, 2010

Prevention and treatment of bile duct injuries during laparoscopic cholecystectomy: the clinical practice guidelines of the European Association for Endoscopic Surgery (EAES).

October 31, 2012

Effects of an intervention to increase bed alarm use to prevent falls in hospitalized patients: a cluster randomized trial.

December 12, 2012

A systematic review of the performance characteristics of clinical event monitor signals used to detect adverse drug events in the hospital setting.

May 23, 2007

Effect of crew resource management on diabetes care and patient outcomes in an inner-city primary care clinic.

August 29, 2007

A cross-cultural survey of residents' perceived barriers in questioning/challenging authority.

August 23, 2006

Reducing surgical mortality in Scotland by use of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist.

May 8, 2019

Variation in electronic test results management and its implications for patient safety: a multisite investigation.

August 19, 2020

Association of interruptions with an increased risk and severity of medication administration errors.

May 5, 2010

Patient safety in dentistry: development of a candidate 'never event' list for primary care.

August 2, 2017

Related Resources

Patient Safety Innovations

Ambulatory Safety Nets to Reduce Missed and Delayed Diagnoses of Cancer

July 31, 2023

Patient Safety Innovations

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

May 31, 2023

Perspective

Using Human Factors Engineering and the SEIPS Model to Advance Patient Safety in Care Transitions

November 16, 2022

Systems approach to health service design, delivery and improvement: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

February 3, 2021

Creating a framework to integrate residency program and medical center approaches to quality improvement and patient safety training

January 13, 2021

High-Performance Work Systems in Health Care Management: Parts 1-5.

October 4, 2020

How organisations contribute to improving the quality of healthcare.

June 12, 2019

Giving voice to quality and safety matters at board level: a qualitative study of the experiences of executive nurses working in England and Wales.

August 24, 2016

Healthcare staff wellbeing, burnout, and patient safety: a systematic review.

August 24, 2016

Improving safety for hospitalized patients: much progress but many challenges remain.

August 17, 2016

Hospital at night: an organizational design that provides safer care at night.

August 10, 2016

Understanding models of error and how they apply in clinical practice.

July 20, 2016

Human factors in healthcare: welcome progress, but still scratching the surface.

June 29, 2016

Comparing trainee and staff perceptions of patient safety culture.

June 29, 2016

Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement, Third Edition.

June 22, 2016

'Just culture': improving safety by achieving substantive, procedural and restorative justice.

May 25, 2016

Developing and Testing the Health Care Safety Hotline: A Prototype Consumer Reporting System for Patient Safety Events. Final Report.

May 25, 2016

Re-examining high reliability: actively organising for safety.

May 18, 2016

Toward a safer health care system: the critical need to improve measurement.

April 27, 2016

Human factors and ergonomics and quality improvement science: integrating approaches for safety in healthcare.

April 1, 2015

Impact of organizations on healthcare-associated infections.

April 1, 2015

The friends and family test: a qualitative study of concerns that influence the willingness of English National Health Service staff to recommend their organisation.

September 24, 2014

Safety organizing, emotional exhaustion, and turnover in hospital nursing units.

September 3, 2014

From harm to hope and purposeful action: what could we do after Francis?

July 23, 2014

That's the way we do things around here! Your actions speak louder than words when it comes to patient safety.

June 18, 2014

Patient Safety: Perspectives on Evidence, Information and Knowledge Transfer.

June 4, 2014

Interview

In Conversation With… Dave deBronkart

June 1, 2014

Preventing health care–associated harm in children.

May 14, 2014

Current challenges and future perspectives for patient safety in surgery.

March 12, 2014

Do no harm: is it time to rethink the Hippocratic Oath?

February 5, 2014

See More About The Topic

Health Care Executives and Administrators

Organizational Behaviorists

Safety Scientists

Quality Improvement Strategies

Application of lean thinking to health care: issues and observations.

Ambulatory Safety Nets to Reduce Missed and Delayed Diagnoses of Cancer

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Application of lean thinking to health care: issues and observations.

Ambulatory Safety Nets to Reduce Missed and Delayed Diagnoses of Cancer

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue logged in

New Users to the PSNet site