The development of the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act1 has placed increased pressure on healthcare
providers to reduce waste and increase efficiency
while maintaining and improving the quality of care.
With finite operational resources, healthcare organizations
are applying waste reduction principles, and
in particular Lean methodologies, to address this issue.
Lean management principles are derived from the Toyota
Production System (TPS)2 and focus on maximizing
efficiency. In the TPS model, efficiency is maximizedwhen tasks are completed with the least amount of
resources or in the least number of processes, while
maintaining the quality of the product being developed.
As a system, the goal of TPS is to continually
seek ways to improve. For these reasons, Lean has
been adapted for use in healthcare settings in the
United States and abroad.