Managing inpatient bed setup: an action-research approach using lean technical practices and lean social practices

Abstract

PurposeThis article aims to introduce a guide to improving hospital bed setup by combining lean technical practices (LTPs), such as kaizen and value stream mapping (VSM) and lean social practices (LSPs), such as employee empowerment.Design/methodology/approachAction research approach was employed to analyze the process of reconfiguration of bed setup management in a Brazilian public hospital.FindingsThe study introduces three contributions: (1) presents the use of VSM focused specifically on bed setup, while the current literature presents studies mainly focused on patient flow management, (2) combines the use of LSPs and LTPs in the context of bed management, expanding current studies that are focused either on mathematical models or on social and human aspects of work, (3) introduces a practical guide based on six steps that combine LSPs and LSPs to improve bed setup management.Research limitations/implicationsThe research focused on the analysis of patient beds. Surgical beds, delivery, emergency care and intensive care unit (ICU) were not considered in this study. In addition, the process indicators analyzed after the implementation of the improvements did not contemplate the moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, this research focused on the implementation of the improvement in the context of only one Brazilian public hospital.Practical implicationsThe combined use of LSPs and LTPs can generate considerable gains in bed setup efficiency and consequently increase the capacity of a hospital to admit new patients, without the ampliation of the physical space and workforce.Social implicationsThe improvement of bed setup has an important social character, whereas it can generate important social benefits such as the improvement of the admission service to patients, reducing the waiting time, reducing hospitalization costs and improving the hospital capacity without additional physical resources. All these results are crucial for populations, their countries and regions.Originality/valueWhile the current literature on bed management is more focused on formal models or pure human and social perspectives, this article brings these two perspectives together in a single, holistic framework. As a result, this article points out that the complex bed management problem can be efficiently solved by combining LSPs and LTPs to present theoretical and practical contributions to the important social problem of hospital bed management.