Lean-led hospital design

Lean-led architectural design

Using Lean principles, we help you design facilities and processes to improve patient care by eliminating waste, reducing cost and improving quality. Our experts work with your team to develop efficient and safe processes for your new facility, train and onboard your staff, and provide a Lean road map with process overviews, operational narratives and standard work for staff. Our team works collaboratively with your employees, the architect and the contractor to define how your hospital should function and what the best layout is.

Lean-led master planning

We deploy a Lean approach to master planning that begins and ends with process in mind – ensuring you have a campus that is flexible for day-to-day needs and able to grow with the future. Developing a master plan is the most critical point in the life cycle of your health care construction project. Completed properly, the master plan allows you to establish the greatest efficiencies. If not done well, it is the point in the process when space and facility problems become etched in stone.

Future-state process design

Our methodology enables you to optimize your operations and process even if you have already completed the final design of your facility. Through Lean training, virtual waste walks and brainstorming sessions to envision several different ways for processes, our team of experts can help you realize effective operational improvements during late design or construction phases of your project. We will map and develop more efficient ways to do day-to-day work before your facility even opens its doors.

Pre-activation implementation services include a focused effort on pre-arrival management and specifically on how a patient will maneuver through multiple electronic medical records and experience a seamless flow. The work will be a continuation of the future-state process design service and will guide the implementation of the design.

Staff readiness — facility transition and activation

Identifies barriers to move-in preparations, facilitates the development of a consistent organizational training process and ensures a smooth transition on the first patient day and beyond by focusing on training and orienting staff who work at the new facility. The program is uniquely designed to guide departmental leadership through the development of standard work that is critical to successfully executing new workflows and processes.

Workplace organization

Using Lean principles, our experts will assist your team in organizing the work environment to promote quality and efficiency while eliminating wasted effort and excess inventory. We help you establish visual controls, standardize supply storage and location and replenishment plans, set par levels and shed unnecessary materials and supplies. We also help you create a culture of “system thinking” by breaking down silos to support error-free care. This improves both patient and staff satisfaction because the focus is on practices that add value, reduce wait times, improve communication, diminish process variation and eliminate waste.

Information technology solutions

No facilities plan is complete without considering the information technology infrastructure. We will help you meet immediate needs while developing a strategic plan that will remain viable for the long-term. We help your IT department maximize its resources by streamlining basic support functions. Through the process, we help your department drive toward defect-free new-technology implementations, further reducing optimization costs so your team can spend time on strategic implementation of electronic medical records and other critical systems.