Lean Training

Lean is a philosophy that puts the patient or customer front and centre and focuses on the elimination of waste from processes to increase value delivered to the end user. The goal is to foster a culture of continuous improvement, using resources, staff and materials efficiently and engaging the knowledge and problem-solving skills of the experts working on the front lines.

Lean, or continuous improvement, has been applied to the healthcare sector with great success, in particular when tackling the challenges posed to the industry by COVID-19. Traditional healthcare systems are designed around functional departments such as pathology, radiology, radiotherapy and ED as opposed to the patient's experience within the healthcare system. The focus of continuous improvement in healthcare is therefore on improving flow among activities that add value to the individual patient’s journey, and to the organisation as a whole. 

Some benefits of Lean Healthcare include:

  • Shorter patient waiting times
  • Faster bed turnarounds
  • Improved workplace organisation, cleanliness and safety
  • Cost savings and avoidance
  • Less inventory used and better utilisation of space
  • More efficient patient record and administrative processes
  • More timely and efficient delivery of care

Donald Berwick, President and Chief Executive of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement commented, ‘The challenge is to revolutionise our expectations of healthcare: to design a continuous flow of work for clinicians and a seamless experience of care for patients.’

The AHHA, in association with LEI Group Australia, now offers a full suite of certified Lean Healthcare education programs. LEI Group has provided over 130,000 hours of training and coaching in continuous improvement concepts, tools and practices to over 10,000 professionals.

We provide training to suit all learning styles and preferences – online, instructor-led at your facility for groups or participants and public instructor-led courses. Our Lean programs are suitable for all health sector employees. If participants have prior Lean experience, they can often begin training at a more advanced level. Watch a video about the benefits of Lean application in Thunder Bay, Ontario or read some case studies here.

For more information, please email admin@ahha.asn.au.

Further reading:

Lean: a comprehensive approach to the transformation our health care system needs

Hospitals are learning from industry how to cut medical errors

Improving outcomes while reducing costs

Hospitals can't improve without better management systems