Understanding lean & safety projects: analysis of case studies

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-27242017000400004

Keywords:

healthcare management, Health Lean Management, Clinical Risk Management, Lean & Safety projects, case studies

Abstract

Facing the current socio-economic contingency while guaranteeing a high level of care quality is particularly challenging in the field of healthcare. Through an integrated adoption of emerging managerial solutions, projects that allow organizations to achieve both efficiency and patient safety improvements could be implemented, thereby transposing policy directives towards a safer and more sustainable healthcare system. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the features of Lean & Safety (L&S) projects. Three Health Lean Management (HLM) projects that had unexpected patient safety results were selected from the same region. Differences and similarities among the cases have been highlighted and interesting points of evidence have been noted. Despite the fact that the projects were pursuing similar objectives and benefiting from comparable support, the obtained changes had direct impact on patient safety enhancement in the cases that involved the front-office processes, and an indirect impact on patient safely for the L&S project that focused on back-office activities. The implementation processes and the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) adoption of the cases are also different.

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Author Biographies

Maria Crema, Dept. Management and Engineering, University of Padova

Maria Crema is Postdoctoral research fellow at Department of Management and Engineering of the University of Padova. Her main research areas are: innovation management and healthcare management.

Chiara Verbano, Dept. Management and Engineering, University of Padova

Chiara Verbano is an Associate Professor of Business and Engineering Economics at the Department of Management and Engineering of the University of Padua. Her major research interests are the fields of R&D management, technology transfer and risk management.

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Published

2017-12-31

How to Cite

Crema, M., & Verbano, C. (2017). Understanding lean & safety projects: analysis of case studies. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, 12(4), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-27242017000400004

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Section

Research Articles