Att arbeta smartare en fallstudie om teorier och modeller inom Lean kan tillämpas i akutsjukvården
The emergency medical care in Sweden has been under persistent debate, due to factors such as long waiting hours, inefficient patient flow, and understaffed departments. In an effort to meet the critique and with a willingness to improve the problems, an increasing amount of emergency clinics are adopting theories and models within Lean. Positive outcomes are evident, there has been some criticism directed towards Lean. Among these is the argument that in order for Lean to be successful it needs to be used within standardized and foreseeable processes, and that it therefore only is applicable to those kind of processes found within industrial production. This prompted the question of whether Lean was a suitable strategy within emergency medical care, considering the large variation of patients and non-foreseeable processes that in fact share little resemblance to that of industrial production. The emergency medical clinic at the Kalmar Regional Hospital has been using Lean for approximately ten years in an effort to improve efficiency in terms of patient flow. During this time, there have been a number of initiatives aimed at improving the Lean processes, coupled with an extensive renovation of the clinic, adapting it to Lean. In order to investigate the applicability of Lean within emergency medical care, a case study has been undertaken at the emergency clinic of the Regional Hospital.