Lean and Operations Strategy in Healthcare– strangers or soulmates?

Abstract

‘Lean’ is an operations management initiative that has received significant attention from both practitioners and scholars within service environments (Panchak 2003, de Souza 2009, Mazzocato et al. 2010, Burgess and Radnor 2012, Vegting et al. 2012, Toussaint and Berry 2013, Bhat and Jnanesh 2014). The application of Lean processes is alluring for healthcare managers globally because of the promise of combining cost reductions with outstanding standards of health service to patients.