Lean Thinking in Health Economics Improving Healthcare Delivery - Coursework Example

Lean Thinking, Health Economics and Healthcare Delivery (Name) (University) Lean Thinking, Health Economics and Healthcare Delivery Introduction Incidents, as well as problems quality, are the primary reasons for leader of health care need to come up with unique delivery of the Medicare. Lean thinking emerged from the designed tools in order to advance the floor operational at a manufacturer’s management approach with sociotechnical as well as operational aspects. The changes of sociotechnical have not received attention to recently. At the similar moment, approach that is balanced leads to operations as well as a sociotechnical improvement that reinforces mutually. Healthcare application mainly focuses on the aspects of the operation using tools of lean that are original. Lean implementation efforts are an integrative approach that pays more attention to dynamics of sociotechnical. In addition, health care may use alternative instrument that is in connection with the lean thinking principles instead of the lean instrument ( Bongers, joosten & Janssen, 2009) Lean thinking is believed to advance potentially delivery of the health care. At the similar moment, methodology and practical considers the need to be accounted. The implementation of the lean quickly fails if the health care does not approach its proper instructions and already, the lean tool faces resistance which makes it hard to improve the long term of the health care (Joosten, Bongers, & Janssen, 2009). Lean thinking involves a management strategy where processes in organizations are improved through determining value and eliminating waste (Karim et al, 2013). When applied entirely in an organization, lean thinking dramatically changes the productivity of the organization and effectively cuts on costs. The concept of lean thinking has originally been used in the manufacturing industry and until most recently in the health and medical care sector (Radnor et al, 2012). The differences which exist between the two sectors determine the application of lean as there are various cultural differences that cannot be ignored. This retro respect paper thus seeks to discuss the relevance of lean thinking in health economics and improvement of health care delivery. Lean Thinking The fundamental principle of lean thinking is that it minimizes those activities that fail to add value for the customer yet still consume resources (Womack, 2015). The first principle in lean thinking is the definition of value form where the final consumer stands. Value is primarily a precise product or service that adequately meets the needs of a customer during a specific time and at a particular price. Value is comparably illustrated in the willingness of a customer to pay to achieve something they want. The second principle outlined in lean thinking is the identification of the whole of the value stream and seeking to get rid of waste (Womack, 2015). The value stream is inclusive of all the processes and measures that are required to critically task a specific product through three different criteria. In the problem solving task, products and processes are designed. The information management task takes on from order taking, then scheduling that is detailed and then to the actual delivery. The final task which is the physical transformation task involves the conversion of raw materials into a finished product suited for the customer. In the second principle, waste needs to be uncovered. The management has to investigate the process of production and identify wastes that can be avoided and those that are necessary. This identification helps to classify waste into different types and thus seek to eliminate the secondary ones and reduce the first ones. The third principle in lean thinking examines the flow in the value stream. The designs, orders and products are worked on continuously without giving room for waiting or downtime (Womack, 2015). Continuity in the process, their standardization and increased improvement are taken as a long term goal for the organization. The workers have to train and master the practices in the organization that deliver the best product and work in a sequence where there is no waste of time whatsoever. The change is essentially radical as most of the energy is directed towards production processes and technologies that work effectively. Flow in the value stream engineers for the design of the existing layouts around the processing stages. Equipment and personnel are thus positioned strategically in the process for effective flow. The fourth principle in lean thinking involves the designation and provision of what the customer wants at the specific time in which they want it. Achievement of continuous flow ensures that customers can get to consume the product at the time in which they need it. This specification from the customers end motivates the processes upstream. The fifth principle pursues perfection through basis on the fact that an effort applied towards improvement tends to build on itself. When waste is reduced, the organization frees up time and resources on both the part of the employees and the machinery which can be directed towards the processes and thus ultimate improvement and perfection (Karim et al, 2013). Despite this picture of definite faultlessness, the concept of lean thinking is a challenging ideal most especially to the healthcare system which possesses a totally different culture form that of the industrial companies. The following section looks at lean thinking in health institutions and how it is improvised to run a health care system. Lean Thinking in Health Institutions Owing to the success of lean thinking in manufacturing industries, the ideal is applicable in health institution with a few adjustments in the engineering of system and standardization of certain processes that can be effectively carried out in the same way. The major challenge of lean thinking in a hospital would be observed in the emergency services and most times the turnover of patients (Radnor et al, 2012). It is difficult to assess how many people will fall sick or what illnesses one may succumb to in order to organize the treatment process. With key principles being continuous improvement, involvement of all employees and elimination of waste, health organizations can seek to achieve this through work that is structured and standardized and placing of common goals. From input and feedback, the organizational processes can be continuously improved. A value concepts that bewilders arrays in health care reflects the quality of plethora measures and frameworks where its value view are from various actors. In order to weigh various kind of values as well as determining measures that are general, optimal balance, and the willingness of paying is used. Quality of reasoning in the premise line is a personal concept level that is the clinical value of the doctor against operational values of the manager. Lean value takes a different point of view because values are not individual concept level but a property of a system. Lean accordance, inherence are contained in the system which it’s Maximal values are bounded by its design instead by the willingness, attitude, and experience of the individual members. When suboptimal value that belongs to any stakeholder, leverage point will be system and will not be personal. For instance, consider an automobile that is moving at high speed, the person who will get annoyed is the owner of the vehicle because of the way the driver is handling the car. The owner will have to give the incentive over driving faster as well as to put a reported incident in the file of the vehicle to mean the driver who wishes to drive faster will to find another different car. That indicates the value. Mortality rate in a particular hospital shows particular preservation of the group of children with fibrosis cytic in an existing system property at job. When the value of the system is improved, it is compulsory also to improve the sociotechnical and operational aspects (Radnor, Holweg, & Waring, 2012). The management of health organizations thus have the task of designing processes correctly and creating incentives that are appropriate and building the correct values into the institution (Harper, 2015). Middle managers have to lead visibly and be accessible to their juniors and the patients. On their part, employees need to work with goals that are clearly set and use the appropriate methods that have been set by the organization. Furthermore, all these parties need to work towards the improvement of quality in daily activities and focus on the customer who is the patient (Harper, 2015). In lean production, an important aspect lies in viewing the institution in the light of processes as opposed to individual activities and departments (Davenport, 2013). The advantage of this view comes in where there is a shift of focus on the end results other than looking at individual effort of personnel or departments. A focus on the entire production flow is important in that the various departments liaise with each other to ease operations (Ward, 2014). A substantial example would be where the lab department liaises with the nurses prepping a patient for surgery then with the surgery team and finally the wards department to move a patient with care and efficiency form one process to another thus saving time, creating a better experience for the customer and ultimately reducing waste of valuable resources. An incentive structure in the health organization is vital in encouraging employees to work towards the same goal (Robbins et al, 2013). Appropriate behavior can be rewarded accordingly. When there is an improvement in the efficiency of the process and quality, the respective members can be given greater influence or additional resources. Lean Thinking and Health Care Delivery Given the challenges in the health care sector; rise of demands and increased expenditures, a reduced number in health care workers who experience daily pressure and working conditions that are not pleasant, the sector does struggle to give better care with the same conditions (Scheibe, 2015). There has been indeed a continuous effort in health care institutions to deliver patient care that is more inclusive and better with less manpower and less financial resources. The concept of lean thinking is very appealing to health care system (Dannapfel et al, 2014). Through lean thinking, medical practitioners would be able to treat and care for patients at a accost that is lower to the society. Lean thinking applies a set of five principles which include the specification of value from the consumer’s perspective, the identification of the steps in the value stream, making sure that the steps flow accordingly in the value stream, letting customers place value from the preceding upstream activity and thus reaching a state of perfection. The practicability of lean thinking might however not apply directly to health care sectors given that the concept was first introduced to deal with mass production in industrial companies (Bilge et al, 2015). In simpler terms, the delivery of health cannot be compared to production n large scale. The value of healthcare given cannot be touched. Consequently it is difficult to specify care and even price it. Moreover the ‘products’ would be the customers themselves with professionals who work autonomously. The next section covers in depth the major challenges that are faced in the realization of lean thinking in healthcare. Lean instruments introduction begins with the lean implementation which targets the redesigning of the operational dimensions of the care delivery process which is a suitable approach in most organizations. The most vital integrative approach is to look already available instrument at the health care that are in connection with the thinking lean, for instance, integrated pathway care as well as care program which results to both bases on the patient in processes analyzes (Radnor, Holweg, & Waring, 2012). Lean always makes a difference between the value as well as non-value improve on the level of the operations. In order to attain the goals of the operation, the patient in process analysis will get the assistance most. From the analysis, the journey of the patients in system of health care is analyzed basing on the distinct categories which identify no value additional activities. The outcome will be used as the beginning point for further improvements (Radnor, Holweg, & Waring, 2012). Care program instrument is an illustration that is in line with the lean which all the coordinated activities and specified, as well as the measures, can deliver health care services in order to attain impacts in a particular population target. Care program as a lean term focuses on the whole value of the system. Care system program depicts the effectiveness in symptoms reduction as well as improvement of the patient’s satisfaction. For an organization to develop care program, it apparently requires defining its precise interventions. Despite the care program has been developed as lean implementation effort section, they assist the organization to improve the systemic view on the performance which promotes lean thinking (Burgess, & Radnor, 2013). The second illustration is the integrated care pathways. Its use is widespread in health care as well as coming up with several that are similar with value of lean instrument mapping stream. It can also it is optimized when using the programs of care in the similar manner which mapping stream value is used to optimize the system value. Despite the shortages as well as arbitrary instrument set indicates the organizations of the health uses the devices that relate with the principles of lean (Leggat, Bartram, Stanton, Bamber, & Sohal, 2015). Aspects of sociotechnical of health care lean thinking A few numeric of lean intervention include issues sociotechnical deliberately issues. The advancements of the operational detailed reported while sociotechnical improvement is described in general terms. An illustration inwards serves as a report on the implementation flow. The numeric of the sick people in wards cannot relate to the conditions are divide into halves with the turnover of the patients increased by twenty percent, and the median stay length is reduced by a single day. In the similar moment, advancement of the opportunities tremendous encourages the team work with good conversation among the specialists as well as the nurse team skill coming up that appropriately bases on the conditions. Lean implementation possesses exceptions that mostly aims at improving operational efficiency and takes account the sociotechnical impacts on their interventions (Dannapfel, Poksinska, & Thomas, 2014). The attentions to sociotechnical aspects in the lean mainstream literature should adjust the insights the health care to take time. Similarly, sociotechnical system theory provides identification for who wants to advance the delivery of the Medicare care. Such improvement needs substantial mind shift mainly managerial class. Sociotechnical advancement need manager to notice the work they do is not only to advance the process of attention which is a professional role. The job of a manager is to ensure the development and improvement of their workforce. They must create an environment as the vital task where members team interaction that can lead to high level of the performance which cannot be achieved by a single team member (Leggat, Bartram, Stanton, Bamber, & Sohal, 2015). The approach begins with gathering and using information on the climate of the organization, learning as well as solving skills problem among the teams. Teams need to choose the improvement that is required basing on the information. Measurements that repeated is used to evaluate the performance progress (Dannapfel, Poksinska, & Thomas, 2014). Some Challenges facing Lean Thinking in Health Care Whereas methods to improve health care and its efficiency have been particularly high, applicability in health care is still clouded by uncertainty (Tones, 2013). The major argument has been to adapt to newfound methods of health care which are industrial and large scale type while the other argument based on whether to keep the old and safe traditional ways that health practitioners are used to in the provision of health services. Taiichi Ohno is the founder of lean thinking and his main focus was the management of operations (Tenescu, 2014). The evolution of lean thinking begun in the year 1992 in operations and was closely followed in 1996 in service. The acceptance of lean thinking in the medical field began in early 2000s (Stanton et al, 2014). The rise in the expenditure of global health care and the need to provide better health care to patients has thus resulted to the requirement to us fewer resources in the provision of health and medical care (D’Andreamatteo et al, 2015). The use of lean thinking is therefore very compelling to decision makers in the medical field. The recognition of lean thinking is currently wide enough in the health care delivery system. Improved methods in the healthcare system show that the application of lean thinking is being used in healthcare (D’Andreamatteo et al, 2015). Despite its efficiencies, there are various challenges faced with lean thinking in the health system and are outlined as follows. As opposed to management factories, adoption of new practices in the health care system is more related to evidence (Greenhalgh et al, 2014). The cultural difference exists in basically improving a company or a community and improving a clinical community on the other hand. Clinical trials are controlled with a scale as acceptable as one as opposed to normal trials in industries (Piantadosi, 2013). The uncertainty of improvement is seen where the effectiveness of improvement of a patient is difficult to assess. This cultural difference is brought about by the fact that each individual patient is different despite use of the same healthcare equipment for treatment. Advancement in hospital technology is needed great, but the recovery of the patient is dependent on other factors such as their age, medical history, weight among other factors (Rosiek et al, 2016). This shows the difference in individuality that may lead to the difficulty in providing evidence of improvement in the health care system. The second challenge appears in the concept of value. Value is indeed central to lean thinking (Ward, 2014). Value in healthcare may be rated in different dimensions such as experiential, clinical and operational value (Venkataraman, 2015). It is safe to contend that most of lean in healthcare is essentially driven by the concept of value which is operational. An instance in where lean thinking is characteristically inadequate to trade is where an extra day in hospital might improve the wellness of a patient or a better experience. In whichever way is achieved, lean requires a currency vale that is common to ensure that the cycle of improvement are driven to better outcomes and that patients have better experience in the delivery of healthcare. Strategies Providing for Lean in Health Care Delivery This section will look at the systems engineering and the soft systems methodology. Systems engineering is a traditional system for all sciences and has alternatively been named hard systems approach (Flood, 2013). Based on this strategy, an observer looks at different systems that interact and which can be engineered to achieve certain objectives. Through the systems engineering approach, an organization is viewed as a system which is open and one that aims to achieve certain objectives in an atmosphere where it has to fit. The approach furthermore conceptualizes an organization to consist of parts that are interchangeable and which work systematically to provide a certain output. The task of creating goals and ensuring they are followed, solving problems and making decisions falls upon the managers. A problem is essentially seen as the situation between the present and the future based on the goal coupled with the process to be used to transform the present state to the future wanted. The work of the industrial engineer is thus to create an objective that will ensure that the goal is achieved in order to solve the problem. It has been argued that the systems engineering approach is not adequate as it limits improvement in the case of an unknown objective (Flood, 2013). The soft systems methodology is therefore discussed in the next section as a better approach where human interference is included in the system as a constant factor. The soft systems methodology involves a scenario where managers and an industrial engineer discuss a problematic real world situation and facilitate an organized process of inquiry (Wilson, 2015). The approach sees the making of models to illustrate a real world situation and has the participants coming up with solutions that may mitigate these problems. Managers generally act as the initiators of the idea and choose the appropriate employees to tackle the problem. The industrial engineer is tasked with introducing knowledge that is relevant. The various participants look at the problem with opinions based on different backgrounds thus giving a clearer and more real life picture of the situation (Wilson, 2015). The conceptions and the knowledge acquired from the process is thus the target of the approach. The participants learning from these activities are at a position to implement better decisions and see the need for improvement in various processes thus giving a great leeway to lean thinking. Cumulative capabilities in health care The approach that is balanced lean finally can lead to a situation where few tradeoffs are making are required. The required measures can explain the operational as well as sociotechnical impacts on actions as well as their results. Such results are partial cases in the lean report about health care. Currently, majority of the reports about improvement appear in the newspapers. Often, most newspapers report to touch on the health improvement outcome such as health-adjusted mortality but some reports give out general terms concerning sociotechnical improvements. There not even single report has been on the entire combined aspects. (Al-Balushi, Singh, Al Farsi, & Al Abri, 2014). Recommendations Based on the topic and the discussion on the purpose of lean thinking in the improvement of health care delivery, industrial engineers ought to use strategies associated with soft systems to assist personnel in organizations find practicable improvement measures in amorphous difficult situations. During the assessment of changes, the collaboration with all parties needs to done to make sure that the continuous collection of raw information is considered of greater precedence. Organizations need to be seen as social structures as opposed to systems of production so that the implementation of lean thinking is done effectively. Use of technological craft such as computer software that makes processes all the more easier is an approach that is dutifully beneficial to the organization. Use of these technologies furthermore helps with the easier implementation of changes. Further research is thus needed and awareness created on the use of these models in health care institutions to improve productivity and minimize costs. In health care sector, specialization is seen as an inarguably central quality. The aspect is visibly seen in situations such as emergencies or the occurrence of a problem that was not anticipated in the treatment. Coordination and continuous improvement is thus affected or thoroughly complicated in these scenarios. As opposed to creating new special sections and developments, the current ones can be extended to accommodate the new situation and provide more knowledge to the facility and its practitioners. Health care officials and healthcare professionals need to be competent enough to assume a lean thinking point of view. This will help them to comprehend the patients’ experience and manage waste in the institution through eliminating it or reducing it. Apart from exclusively using lean management and thinking as an approach for improving the delivery of medical and health care, the concept should additionally be used to encourage healthcare delivery that is lean. This can be achieved through designation of employee levels, information systems, hospitals and hospital systems around the continuous patient flow. From discussion on management approach of the lean thinking which focusses on the appearance of operation together with dynamics of sociotechnical advancement system sources. Also, one begin to insights the application of the health care. Therefore, related report of the lean on improvement in Medicare has led to the conclusion message of lean has hundred percent sure. Improves of a lean quality and safety, staff morale as well as cost reduction at a similar moment. The positive conclusion fails to account various issues that relate with lean thinking application to healthcare. The hardest recognition that sociotechnical changes takes pace while lean thinking is implemented, as well as information on the necessity of socio-technical challenges, begin to appear, questionnaires multitude, parameters outcome together with designed studies used in makes difficult to come up with conclusion that are general. Dynamics of sociotechnical studies that is used in the lean organization, particularly when health care is virtual absent. Lean thinking operations aspects together with the performance of a link have been discussed intensely, but its application to medical care is scarce. Similarly to cumulative capabilities where the outcome research on health care is limited. The possibilities of supporting the lean thinking offer improvement to health care. It is a hand development procedure in connection with the proposal made by the authors on the methods of advancing health care system globally. 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