Démarches d'amélioration en milieu hospitalier: Du management de la qualité totale au Lean

Hospitals have to deal strong with economic constraints and increasing requirements in terms of quality and safety of care. To address these constraints, one solution could be the adoption of approaches from the industry sector. Following the decree of April 6, 2011 on the quality management of the medication use process, some of these approaches, such as risk management, are now part of the everyday work of healthcare professionals. However, other approaches, such as business process improvement, are still poorly developed in thehospital setting. In this general review, we discuss the main approaches of business processimprovements that have been used in hospitals by focusing specifically on one of the newestand most currently used: Lean.