Lean strategies in healthcare aim at improving patient throughput, reducing medication errors, redesigning work flow, improving patient safety, and reducing cycle time. Documented studies to improve healthcares warehouse operation are not common in the literature. Managing types of medical supplies has always been a priority due to demand uncertainties and the risk of shortages that would profoundly affect patient safety. This study showcases two implementation approaches for the Lean tool 5S (Hybrid and Traditional) conducted in three different hospitals central warehouses at Ochsner Health System. These warehouses store similar medical products with over 1000 types of supplies (e.g. syringes, gloves, primary IV) that supply different departments within hospitals and clinics. The participating warehouses faced similar problems due to over/under stocked inventories, space constraints, and poor layouts. The objective of this study was to compare the impact of implementing a Hybrid 5S (integrated with inventory management techniques and process improvement tools) along with two Traditional 5Ss to improve healthcare warehouse operations. Although the two approaches improved the baseline warehouse process, the warehouse that used the Hybrid 5S showed the greatest improvement with an increase of 59.5% in inventory turnover, 15.7% space saved, and least number of non-conformities in the 5S audit tool.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-06082011-094408 |
| Date | 08 June 2011 |
| Creators | Venkateswaran, Sanjith |
| Contributors | Nahmens, Isabelina, Ikuma, Laura, Harvey, Craig |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06082011-094408/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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