Application of Lean Management Methods in Healthcare Industry

• Main Authors: Wang, Dao-Liang., 王道梁
• Other Authors: Chen, Jiang-Liang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84fn6y

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 工業工程與工程管理學系所 === 105 === According to Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation (THRF), Nurse-Patient Ratios is 1:13 in Taiwan, while the international standard is 1:6, which reveals a tension in medical resources in Taiwan. Improving the usage rate of medical resources is one of efficient methodologies, which means Lean Management can be adopted. Due to high price of Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) equipment, the effective utilization of IMRT equipment has been paid more attention. Therefore, lean management techniques are applied in improving IMRT treatment process in this study. This study proposed a process improvement framework for reducing the total time of IMRT treatment process, increasing the capacity of treatment per day and finally improving the usage rate of IMRT equipment. It was used to improve IMRT process of MacKay Memorial Hospital (MMH) Tamsui Branch for empirical study. Three phases are included in the research. Firstly, the IMRT process at MMH will be investigated to identify the waste and improvement opportunities. Quick Changeover (QCO) technique and other lean tools were used. Secondly, software FlexSim was used to analyze the efficiency of improved solutions. Finally, the problems of decision making for the selection of improved solutions were identified and solved. Multi-Attribute Decision Analysis (MADA) theories was applied. This research took into account the practical characteristics in healthcare processes. The approach was specific to the case study, but the same methodology can be applied in other healthcare environments.