Highlights
- •Increased clinic appointment times lead to decreased patient throughput.
- •Lean healthcare techniques improve efficiency and clinic flow.
- •Lean healthcare implementation decreased appointment times by up to 10 minutes.
- •Lean healthcare techniques are small changes and require no money or extra steps.
- •Lean healthcare techniques should not reduce face-to-face patient care time.
Abstract
To reduce extended appointment times at a heart failure clinic, 3 Lean healthcare-based
changes were planned and implemented one at a time over 4 months. Findings based on
1,267 appointments showed that appointment times decreased with proper implementation.
Although staffing challenges and inadequate sample sizes prevented statistical analysis
on consult appointments, follow-up appointment results were statistically significant
based on 1-way analysis of variance and Tukey honest significant difference tests.
Although the study period prevented the determination of a correlation between monthly
clinic end times and average appointment times (patient throughput), in-room minute
decreases suggest that lean healthcare techniques can be effective in this context.
Keywords
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References
- Lean Six Sigma techniques to improve ophthalmology clinic efficiency.Retina. 2018; 38: 1688-1698https://doi.org/10.1097/IAE.0000000000001761
- Effects of lean healthcare on patient flow: a systematic review.Value Health. 2020; 23: 260-273https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2019.11.002
- Lean manufacturing in healthcare: a systematic review of literature.Rev Prod Desenv. 2018; 4: 111-122https://doi.org/10.32358/rpd.2018.v4.285
- Using lean six sigma techniques to improve efficiency in outpatient ophthalmology clinics.BMC Health Serv Res. 2021; 21: 38https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-06034-3
- Lean business models in healthcare: a systematic review.Total Qual Manag Bus Excell. 2019; 32: 558-573https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2019.1601995
Biography
Lindsay Frank, DNP, FNP-BC, is a DNP student at The University of Tulsa School of Nursing, Tulsa, OK, and can be contacted at [email protected] Anne Rader, DNP, FNP-BC is an instructor at The University of Tulsa School of Nursing, Tulsa, OK
Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 15, 2023
Footnotes
In compliance with standard ethical guidelines, the authors report no relationships with business or industry that would pose a conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
