Researchers from the CHOIR and CLEAR teams recently published an article in Health Care Management Review. The scientists found that “lean adoption was significantly associated at alpha < .05, with lower Medicare spending per beneficiary (b = −.005, p = .027). None of the other nine associations were statistically significant, although eight of them were in the predicted direction” (Rundall et al). Since LEAN implementation was not associated with most measures of hospital performance, the authors declared that “if Lean management is to contribute to hospital performance improvement, leaders must be highly cognizant of what “adoption of Lean” actually means in their hospital. Although limited, single-unit Lean initiatives in an emergency room or other patient care unit may improve performance on some unit-specific measures,
improvement on hospital-wide measures of performance requires a broad, sustained commitment to the implementation of Lean practices and tools” (Rundal et al.)
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