Healthcare has already repeatedly applied lean principles to improve patient care, reduce costs, and reduce medical errors. Now, it’s being taken to the next level and being applied to Neurosurgery. Hospitals looked to improve efficiency by incorporating lean principles to standardize surgical workflow and identify waste. They found that process improvement can be adapted and applied to surgical procedures. However, the implementation is not only time consuming and labor intensive, but there is also variability in the types of wastes that reduce operative efficiency. Nonetheless, with formal training, employees become increasingly comfortable with lean principles.
