In healthcare, better management directly impacts quality of life

In any kind of business, whatever it may be, improving the management of a company is always a relevant mission. That is because by becoming more efficient and productive, a company optimizes its competitiveness and thus tends to be more successful, generate more income, jobs, etc., helping to boost the country's economy, which is good for everyone.

There is one kind of organization, however, in which improving management is socially even more important: the health sector, in entities such as clinics and hospitals.

That is because an organization in the health sector, like any other, is also the result of a management model. If they are organized around inefficient models, they show the same problems as any other company in a similar situation: waste of resources, work, time and space. And with that, inevitably, they see a decline in the safety and quality of what is the essential purpose of this type of organization: patient care.

This is even more worrying in Brazil, especially in the public sector, where historically, as we know, health investments and structures – marked by management models even more bureaucratic and inefficient than in the private sector – are far from meeting all of society's demands. Something similar also happens in the private sector, where ever-rising costs make access to health care increasingly restricted.

The good news is that there is a movement today, in Brazil and around the world, of health organizations that are increasingly discovering that it is not enough to have the best doctors, nurses, medicines and equipment if there is no efficient management to organize this work and make it better, safer and accessible to more people. These are organizations that are revolutionizing their management models and, as a result, achieving impressive results.

For example, public and private hospitals that, using concepts and practices from the lean system, mapped the entire “patient journey” in emergency departments, surgical centers, etc. And they discovered a series of wastes that left extremely valuable human and material resources underutilized while patients waited for care. Or complicated processes that hinder interaction between teams of specialists, generating errors that can put patient safety at risk. And they are changing this picture through changes in management.

These initiatives have used the lean philosophy, or lean thinking, which emerged decades ago in the automotive industry and today has applications in the most diverse sectors, whether manufacturing or services. A few years ago, the first initiatives applying these concepts in the health sector faced many doubts: would using them in patient care bring the same benefits as in other areas?

Fortunately, today, with countless success stories in Brazil and other countries, we can say that these doubts about whether the lean concept applies to the health sector have been overcome.
  
There are already many applications in which teams, by identifying these bottlenecks and wastes and using lean principles such as value stream mapping, quality at the source, standardized work, rapid problem solving with everyone's involvement and visual management, managed to increase the utilization of beds, surgical centers, diagnostic equipment, etc. by 20% to 40% in many cases. In other words, they discovered that there was a “second hidden hospital” that was not being used. And this “just” by reshaping management.

Stories like these are increasingly common. Another example comes from a large chain of clinics, also Brazilian, that has been adopting lean management in all its processes for about 10 years. Among other things, it has turned its doctors, nurses and other staff into “problem solvers” who identify, discuss and quickly resolve any deviation from plan every day.

In these and other examples, it is clear that lean management directs all the work of a health organization toward what is (or should be) its true purpose: patient care. As a result, executives, doctors and nurses at the forefront of this effort say that this change in management increases safety, considerably reduces the possibility of medical error, speeds up care, eliminates queues and waiting, increases surgical capacity and humanizes care, among many other results.

In June, a group of hospitals and health professionals will meet in São Paulo to detail these cases taking place not only in Brazil but also in the USA, Australia, Argentina and Singapore – and not only in the private sector, but also successful experiences already happening in Brazilian public health care.

They are proof that, more than helping to increase revenue, create jobs and advance the economy, in the health sector changing management can have an immediate impact on the quality of life of millions of people and even prevent lives from being lost for lack of timely care.