Lean transformation framework for treatment-oriented outpatient departments

Ting Yu, Kudret Demirli and Nadia Bhuiyan

International Journal of Production Research, 2022, vol. 60, issue 6, 1767-1781

Abstract: Long wait times and low resource utilisation are the most critical issues in treatment-oriented outpatient departments. While Lean has been utilised to resolve similar issues in healthcare, the literature provides no structured means of implementing Lean in outpatient departments. This study establishes a Lean transformation framework to identify a balanced patient demand by determining proper patient compositions, to schedule non-specialists to increase resource utilisation, and to level patient schedule throughout the day to reduce wait times. This framework includes a series of activities and Lean tools that are specifically adapted for use in outpatient departments. A case study is presented to illustrate the implementation of the proposed framework and its possible impacts, using data from a community hospital oncology department in Montreal, Canada. Results suggests that this framework reduces patient visit time by 36% and increases daily treatments by 39% and utilisation of chemotherapy chairs by 22%, with a possibility to implement a one-day treatment regime. The proposed framework can assist treatment-oriented outpatient departments to overcome their operational challenges and to serve as an effective guideline in their Lean transformation.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00207543.2020.1870014 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:tprsxx:v:60:y:2022:i:6:p:1767-1781

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TPRS20

DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2020.1870014

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Research is currently edited by Professor A. Dolgui

More articles in International Journal of Production Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().