LEAN Healthcare: Evaluation of Bed Throughput at OSU Medical Center

Several factors play a role in an organization’s success to function on a daily basis. For example, one factor being the application of efficient protocols to produce effective and consistent results. There is a specific procedure, called LEAN, that has been increasingly employed throughout various types of corporate professions due to its favorable outcomes. Originally, LEAN practices were created to enhance workflow and manufacturing processes in the automobile industry. After other industries observed the success rates from applying these certain methods, LEAN has been progressively adapted by many businesses to achieve similar effects. By adopting the LEAN methodologies, corporations have been able to increase their productivity, value, and client satisfaction. An example of how versatile and beneficial the LEAN approach can be in other fields, besides manufacturing, can be portrayed within a healthcare setting. There have been multiple healthcare organizations that have applied LEAN strategies to their systems in order to amplify quality improvement, with an end goal to better patient care. In this poster, a model is presented on how to apply and replicate LEAN tactics in an effort to advance bed throughput within a hospital setting. In the summer of 2022, a team of medical students from Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (OSU-COM) applied LEAN tools and techniques to examine the delayed process of bed throughput from the Emergency Department to the hospital floors. In doing so, possible solutions were developed in hopes to improve workflow, culture, and most importantly, patient outcomes.