Towards Lean Healthcare: Implementation of operations excellence in public hospitals

In the 80's, the Lean Production System urged industrial companies to « think different » the operational system. Nowadays, the public hospital is facing difficulties that make revelant a global organisationnal transformation. contributions involving Lean applications in healthcare exist, but there is a lack of global and structured methodology. In this article, we propose the Healthcare Excellence framework, which transposes the Lean manufacturing principles to the specific healthcare environment. The proposed methodology for healthcare transformation is illustrated with existing projects lead in French public hospitals.