Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Volume 17, Issue 15, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17155609
Keywords
inpatient care; lean healthcare; efficiency; patient flow; systematic review; length of stay; turnaround time; turnover time; on-time starts; boarding time; readmission rate; discharge time
Funding
- Mexico's National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT)
- PRODEP Program (Programa para el Desarrollo Profesional Docente, para el Tipo Superior)
- Universidad Autonoma de Baja California
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Healthcare services are facing challenges in increasing their efficiency, quality of care, and coping with surges in demand. To this end, some hospitals have implemented lean healthcare. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the effects of lean healthcare (LH) interventions on inpatient care and determine whether patient flow and efficiency outcomes improve. The review was performed according to PRISMA. We used six databases to search for studies published from 2002 to 2019. Out of 5732 studies, 39 measuring one or more defined outcomes were included. Hospital length of stay (LOS) was measured in 23 studies, 16 of which reported a reduction, turnover time (TOT) decreased in six out of eight studies, while the turnaround time (TAT) and on-time starts (OTS) improved in all five and seven studies, respectively. Moreover, eight out of nine studies reported an earlier discharge time, and the boarding time decreased in all four cases. Meanwhile, the readmission rate did not increase in all nine studies. Lastly, staff and patient satisfaction improved in all eight studies. Our findings show that by focusing on reducing non-value-added activities, LH contributed to improving patient flow and efficiency within inpatient care.
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