Lean Healthcare in the Emergency Ward of Sahlgrenska Hospital

Customer satisfaction in healthcare organizations has higher priority than in industrialcompanies because the patient is the customer and the health of patient is the aim. So, amethodology like Lean which can help to increase patient satisfaction is practical and usefulfor implementation in healthcare sectors. This dissertation is based upon a Lean healthcare inthe emergency ward of Sahlgrenska hospital and explains that the main step of Leanhealthcare is to change the culture from traditional thinking to Lean thinking. In order toreach this goal, the research instruments used are: interview, triage data base, spending timeat emergency ward, and value stream mapping. The focus of this thesis work is to find thebest combination of medicine doctors and surgeons that would optimize the performance. Byusing Arena simulation software, it has been identified that three medicine doctors and threesurgeons can decrease the non-value added time and total time in sequence 13.1% and 1.6 %for each patient. Indeed, the 5S steps in all parts of the emergency ward have been practicedas best suited to the surroundings of the ward. The place of Triage room two for the patientswho arrive by ambulance is extended for better and faster service. A Lean team is trained forfollowing up the Lean principles in the ward and report the progress to the management.The results and suggestions are in two kinds. First are short term suggestions like to hire onemedicine doctors and two surgeons, to hold more training classes for all staff, and to allot anumber for each patient bed. Second are long term recommendations such as to change thelayout of the emergency ward and use a partition instead of a room