An integrative approach to improving patient care pathways

Purpose Globally, healthcare managers continue to struggle with increasing demands for their services being delivered with limited or shrinking resources. It is therefore, clear that systems, processes and practices need to change to meet these challenges. We assess how integrating two improvement technologies, Lean and Integrated Care Pathways (ICPs) might help. Design/methodology/approach Lean and ICP in healthcare provide a platform to develop conceptual frameworks for integrating two approaches. Findings A conceptual integrated framework is provided to assist care pathway designers and implementers to consider the synergistic benefits of combining approaches to improvement. Research limitations/implications We provide a conceptual framework that requires empirically testing. Practical implications This research provides a conceptual framework to aid practitioners to improve healthcare design and delivery. Originality/value For the first time, we bring together two approaches to improving patient care pathway design and considers how these are linked in relation to improving healthcare delivery