Streamlining Laboratory Work Flow Using Lean Concepts: An Exploratory Study

Quality has gained highest level of importance in every sector of business including healthcare industry. Due to its complex nature, quality care with long-term strategies for continuous quality improvement plays a vital role. To achieve desired level of quality, the work process needs to be streamlined by adopting tools and models that emphasize on value-added activities. It is a cross-sectional study, exploratory in nature carried out for a period of six months in a tertiary care teaching hospital. The study focused on Value-Stream Mapping (VSM) and calculation of Turn-Around Time (TAT), TAKT time for the laboratory workflow to identify gaps and non-value added activities. This study aims to eliminate non-value added steps in the work process. The data analysis was carried out by using Quality control tools such as histogram and Fish-bone diagram. As a result of data analysis, it can be concluded that Essential non-value added steps and Non-Essential non-value added steps are 17.4 minutes and 26.76 minutes, 20.4 minutes and 26.93 minutes for Biochemistry specimens and Pathology/Hematology specimens respectively. Therefore, a revised valueadded laboratory workflow was framed and recommendations are provided that emphasize the utilization of the existing resources and to adopt innovative technologies to reduce TAT and delays.