Implementation of the Lean Healthcare System in the Emergency Room of the Clinical Hospital of the Federal University of Uberlândia: A Case Study

Paulo Sergio de Freitas (), Guilherme Silva de Mendonça and Elmiro Santos Resende
Additional contact information
Paulo Sergio de Freitas: Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Uberlândia, Patos de Minas 38700-002, Brazil
Guilherme Silva de Mendonça: Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Uberlândia, Patos de Minas 38700-002, Brazil
Elmiro Santos Resende: Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Uberlândia, Patos de Minas 38700-002, Brazil

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 24, 1-16

Abstract: The objective of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of the implementation of the lean healthcare system at the emergency room of the Clinical Hospital of the Federal University of Uberlândia, based on a comparison of hospital indicators obtained over the three phases corresponding to the period of one year before the implementation (T1), the year during the implementation (T2) and one year after implementation (T3). The methodology applied through this study can be classified as a case study that is exploratory and descriptive and developed in stages. Based herein on the search for hospital indicators, as occurred in the implementation of a lean process at the Clinical Hospital Emergency Department, along with a description of the implemented lean system. During the collection period of data relevant to the National Emergency Department Overcrowding Score and Length of Stay Indicator, the motivation of the teams grew, but with a notable tension between municipal management and hospital management. It was found that, despite the fluctuations, the patient length of stay in the Emergency Room remained high. With the exception of the variable of female deaths before 24 h of hospitalization, all other variables showed percentage increases before and after the intervention. This study reported the difficulties encountered by HC-UFU in implementing the lean project in an emergency room, thus ensuring that other institutions that intend to implement this project do not make the same types of mistakes.

Keywords: lean in emergencies; emergency room overcrowding; lean health; management of health services; hospital management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/24/7184/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/24/7184/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:24:p:7184-:d:1300795

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().