Adopting IT Application in lean Healthcare: A case study of Malaysian General Hospital

Abstract

Lean is a quality improvement methodology that can identify and eliminate waste from processes. While methodology is widely implemented and manufacturing and Automotive, it is also applicable in another area such as service industry of healthcare. Institution who concern with health, such as the hospital involve complicated and length business process daily. Consequently, this encourage exhaustive process chain, which is unreliable, cost ineffective and resource wastage. Moreover, the chain may lead to medication error or error in medication delivery. Although the lean methodology is widely used in healthcare, there is limited empirical evidence in resolving such issue, mainly focusing on specimen handling in a real hospital environment. This paper focused on the implemented of a systematic method of lean into a healthcare institution in Malaysia to decrease the time access and to have better inventory control of specimen. The adoption of lean is achieved by implementing an efficient barcode system for specimen handling to pursue better management, which will lead to time reduction and allow the hospital to offer good quality healthcare service. The study confirms that the systematic lean method is significantly improved action and processes. The finding is also applicable to lead to a general patient satisfaction by adding values to the existing process but shorten some additional activities.