The Role of Value Stream Mapping in Healthcare Services: A Scoping Review

Juan A. Marin-Garcia, Pilar I. Vidal-Carreras and Julio J. Garcia-Sabater
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Juan A. Marin-Garcia: ROGLE, Department of Organización de Empresas, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia s/n, 46021 Valencia, Spain
Pilar I. Vidal-Carreras: ROGLE, Department of Organización de Empresas, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia s/n, 46021 Valencia, Spain
Julio J. Garcia-Sabater: ROGLE, Department of Organización de Empresas, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia s/n, 46021 Valencia, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 3, 1-25

Abstract: Lean healthcare aims to manage and improve the processes in the healthcare sector by eliminating everything that adds no value by improving quality of services, ensuring patient safety and facilitating health professionals’ work to achieve a flexible and reliable organization. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is considered the starting point of any lean implementation. Some papers report applications of VSM in healthcare services, but there has been less attention paid to their contribution on sustainability indicators. The purpose of this work is to analyze the role of VSM in this context. To do so, a scoping review of works from recent years (2015 to 2019) was done. The results show that most applications of VSM reported are in the tertiary level of care, and the United States of America (USA) is the country which leads most of the applications published. In relation with the development of VSM, a heterogeneity in the maps and the sustainability indicators is remarkable. Moreover, only operational and social sustainability indicators are commonly included. We can conclude that more standardization is required in the development of the VSM in the healthcare sector, also including the environmental indicators.

Keywords: lean healthcare; Value Stream Mapping (VSM); patient flow; process improvement; systematic literature review; sustainability; scoping review; bibliometric; bibliometrix; primary care; secondary care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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