Toyota Production System Design Rules to Improve Delivery of Patient Care:A Case Example

The healthcare industry in the United States has been fraught with medical errors, rising costs, and wastes for many years. Despite widespread adoption of Total Quality Management and Six Sigma programs, healthcare's woes continue unabated. The Toyota Production System (IPS), progenitor of lean manufacturing, is widely regarded as the most effective production system ever devised. It has been successfully adopted by manufacturing firms worldwide resulting in significant gains in efficiency and quality in companies of all sizes. The goal of this work was to determine whether principles from the Toyota Production System could be applied to a healthcare environment to improve its delivery systems.