We are pleased to announce the launch of the Center for Lean Engagement and Research (CLEAR) in healthcare. CLEAR is an affiliate center of CHOIR being co-led by Stephen M. Shortell, current CHOIR co-director, and Thomas Rundall, Professor Emeritus of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health. CLEAR is supported by Cardinal Health, the Thedacare Center for Value Creation, the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), and Rona and Associates.
CLEAR defines Lean as the development of a culture that enables an overall management system to create value for customers by eliminating waste and solve problems through the daily application of the scientific method in creating standard work. Lean is the operating/management system for implementing scientific evidence-based care delivery to maximize value for patients.
A recent systematic review of published research on Lean in healthcare states: “While some may strongly believe that Lean interventions lead to quality improvements in healthcare, the evidence to date simply does support this claim. More rigorous, high quality, and better conducted research is required to definitively ascertain the impact and effectiveness of Lean in healthcare settings,” (Mororos, Lemstra, & Nwonkwo, 2016). CLEAR is the response to this challenge.
CLEAR’s goals are to: 1) conduct in-house leading edge research on Lean in healthcare, beginning with the first national survey of Lean in hospitals and linkage to performance metrics; 2) collaborate with interested health care organizations and health services researchers focusing on assessing the impact of Lean in specific organizations and units; and 3) facilitate research among other researchers and health care organizations by providing information and tools available on their website. Overall, CLEAR aims to accelerate the development of evidence-based, actionable knowledge that can be used to improve the delivery of healthcare services.
Learn more from their website at clear.berkeley.edu.