Use of a discrete-event simulation in a Kaizen event: A case study in healthcare

Chantal Baril, Viviane Gascon, Jonathan Miller and Nadine Côté

European Journal of Operational Research, 2016, vol. 249, issue 1, 327-339

Abstract: To improve service delivery, healthcare facilities look toward operations research techniques, discrete event simulation and continuous improvement approaches such as Lean manufacturing. Lean management often includes a Kaizen event to facilitate the acceptance of the project by the employees. Business game is also used as a tool to increase understanding of Lean management concepts. In this paper, we study how a business game can be used jointly with discrete event simulation to test scenarios defined by team members during a Kaizen event. The aim is to allow a rapid and successful implementation of the solutions developed during the Kaizen. Our approach has been used to improve patients’ trajectory in an outpatient hematology–oncology clinic. Patient delays before receiving their treatment were reduced by 74 percent after 19 weeks.

Keywords: Discrete-event simulation; Business game; Lean approach; Kaizen event; Outpatient clinic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221715007912
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:249:y:2016:i:1:p:327-339

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2015.08.036

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().