Lean management in Indian health care: An exploratory study

Facing intense competition and the inability to meet an increasingly growing demand, makes healthcare organizations to seek structural and organizational changes in order to achieve performance improvement. Lean Healthcare is nothing but getting the concepts of lean management and implementing them in the processes of healthcare to improve quality and eliminate errors, wastage and it has been a growing alternative in terms of quality pursuit, being based on patient's needs and saving resources that can bring positive results concerning quality of care and costs. Looking to adopt Lean philosophy in health services, many organizations have adopted different approaches and improvement strategies. There are a large variety of tools and techniques which can be used by health organizations in this regard. The study found that there is an association between the different services provided, their quality and the patients satisfaction level. This research mainly focuses on knowing the extent of awareness and implementation of lean management principles of hospital personnel and to assess quality in various services provided to the patients by the hospitals.