Abstract:
Positive perception of employees about Lean management is the most critical factor for the success of Lean practices. Although there are studies measuring staff perception of Lean adoption in healthcare, staff perception of Lean health practices before adopting Lean and its change after the implementation has not been studied yet. This study examines the effects of implementing Lean Health Care Management (LHCM) on the staff perception of Lean health practices in a university hospital accepting 1.2 million patients per year from all over the world. A scoring scale based on 48 questions was used to examine the effects of the LHCM practices on a total of 286 participating staff. The survey was conducted before training the employees about LHCM and after the implementation of LHCM for one year. Our results showed that the university hospital rightly embedded Lean health care practices as a part of the organization culture and improved operational efficiency and effectiveness. The personnel perception of ten lean health practices changed positively (t=4.83, p<0.05); 1) Continuous improvement (t=2.63, p<0.05), 2) Problem solving (t=8.08, p<0.05), 3) Flow orientation (t=4.24, p<0.05), 4) Self-managed teams (t=3.44, p<0.05), 5) Visual control (t=10.7, p<0.05), 6) Brief meeting (t=5.99, p<0.05), 7) Standardized work (t=2.54, p<0.05), 8) Coaching (t=4.49, p<0.05), 9) Supporting leadership style (t=3.60, p<0.05), 10) 5S (idle detection, proper placement, cleaning, standardization, discipline) (t=5.55, p<0.05). Our study is the first to report that personnel perception of Lean health practices changes positively shortly after initiating lean implementation.
Author(s): Ismail Hizli, Samil Hizli, Nermin Gurhan