Lean in healthcare organization: an opportunity for environmental sustainability

• Published in: Benchmarking : an international journal Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 205 - 220
• Main Author: Singh, Poonam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bradford Emerald Publishing Limited 11.02.2019; Emerald Group Publishing Limited
• Subjects: Assimilation; Blood & organ donations; Carbon footprint; Constructivism; Developing countries; Employees; Environmental impact; Epistemology; Health care; Health care industry; Hospitals; LDCs; Natural resources; Organizational aspects; Organizations; Participation; Patient safety; Patient satisfaction; Philosophy; Renewable resources; Supply chains; Sustainability; Sustainable development; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US; Virginia; Lean; Ecology; Environmental sustainability; Lean in healthcare organization
• ISSN: 1463-5771; 1758-4094
• DOI: 10.1108/BIJ-04-2018-0104

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide insights toward the potential of lean healthcare organization for environment sustainability and develop propositions for future studies. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper to study the inbuilt capacity of lean healthcare organization to mitigate environmental footprint. As a result, lean compatibility with environmental sustainability (ES) has been explored in areas like manufacturing, supply chain, aviation, construction, etc. The lean philosophy, lean culture and lean tools were analyzed to identify their contribution to ES in the context of healthcare organizations. Findings Based on the analysis of lean philosophy, culture and tool, this paper theorizes that lean healthcare organizations have huge potential to mitigate environmental footprints. Lean healthcare organizations need not to do any extra effort for ES albeit it is inbuilt in it. Lean philosophy provides a vision to the healthcare organization for ES whereas lean culture bestow healthcare with an epistemology for the same. Research limitations/implications This paper provides insight that ES is embedded in lean healthcare organizations. Lean healthcare organizational culture is ideal for application for constructivism theory where employees construct a new knowledge from their experiences to minimize the waste that eventually help in ES. Originality/value Major contributions of the study include a new approach for mitigating the environmental footprints by adopting lean in healthcare organization.