Abstract: Lean Management method has been applied in several fields before its implementation in healthcare area. Among the different techniques associated with Lean, in this paper, we are focused on Kanban system, which is a method that presents several benefits such as inventory holding reduction or improvement of the employees' satisfaction. Our main objective is to carry out a literature review focused on Kanban methodology applied to health care. In this sense, this study can serve as a script to improve hospital managementin pandemic periods, such as the one currently lived on COVID-19. We carry out a literature review searching in
four different databases. We combine several terms to achieve our objective. We identify several articles which describe Kanban methodology applied to health field. More specifically, we present in what areas (nursing or pharmacy, among others) this method has been applied. In addition, we show all the barriers as well as benefits caused by the implementation of this system. There are a few studies focused on analysing how Kanban is applied to health care. Therefore, we can affirm that this topic is still recent.
Authorship: Lanza-León P., Sanchez-Ruiz L., Cantarero-Prieto D.,
Fuente: International Journal of Health Planning and Management.Volume36, Issue 6, November 2021, Pages 2062-2078
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Publication date: 01/11/2021
No. of pages: 17
Publication type: Article
DOI: 10.1002/hpm.3276
ISSN: 1099-1751,0749-6753