A Digital Lean Thinking Framework & Human-Centric Modelling Approach for Patients Processes Continuous Improvement

Abstract

Lean is a management and engineering methodology that promotes customer-centric value-added creation, continuous improvement, and operational excellence. It provides an organisational culture focused on leadership, communication, empowerment, and teamwork-oriented to customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it offers practical methods and tools to create highly efficient and effective processes for operational excellence. The Lean Healthcare Paradigm aims to create extraordinary patient care in the form of the highest quality, safety, and empathy with the patients, and the easiest and timely access to healthcare services at an affordable cost. It allows hospitals to improve the quality of their healthcare services by reducing errors, risks, and waiting times. Moreover, with the emergence of new digital tools, Lean Hospitals have started their Digital Transformation journey towards a novel Digital Lean Healthcare Paradigm in the pursuit of the next level of operational excellence and patient satisfaction. However, in the healthcare sector, it has been found that hospitals tend to struggle with their “digital transformation” for different reasons, either because they focus only on implementing digital technologies without having control over their processes, or because they do not take into account the needs of the patient, or simply they stay halfway. Thus, this thesis aims to create a Digital Lean Thinking Framework & Human-Centric Modelling Approach for healthcare organisations with a focus on patient-centredness to provide hospitals with a clearer and practical guide on how to carry out their “Digital Lean Healthcare Transformation”. Likewise, the proposed framework emphasises the need to follow a continuous improvement method such as the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle to have a more structured strategic planning with clear objectives, tasks, methods, timelines, and responsibilities. Finally, the case study of this thesis focuses on enriching and validating the proposed Digital Lean Thinking Framework & Human-Centric Modelling Approach for Patients Processes Continuous Improvement by “improving” the medical consultation process of a patient in the Gynaecology area of a private hospital in Monterrey, Mexico.