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Lean healthcare from a change management perspective: The role of leadership and workforce flexibility in an operating theatre

Lisa van Rossum (TEN HAVE Change Management, Utrecht, Netherlands)
Kjeld Harald Aij (Anesthesiology & Operative Care, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Frederique Elisabeth Simons (Zaans Medical Center, Zaandam, Netherlands)
Niels van der Eng (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Wouter Dirk ten Have (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Journal of Health Organization and Management

ISSN: 1477-7266

Article publication date: 16 May 2016

11819

Abstract

Purpose

Lean healthcare is used in a growing number of hospitals to increase efficiency and quality of care. However, healthcare organizations encounter problems with the implementation of change initiatives due to an implementation gap: the gap between strategy and execution. From a change management perspective, the purpose of this paper is to increase scientific knowledge regarding factors that diminish the implementation gap and make the transition from the “toolbox lean” toward an actual transformation to lean healthcare.

Design/methodology/approach

A cross-sectional study was executed in an operating theatre of a Dutch University Medical Centre. Transformational leadership was expected to ensure the required top-down commitment, whereas team leadership creates the required active, bottom-up behavior of employees. Furthermore, professional and functional silos and a hierarchical structure were expected to impede the workforce flexibility in adapting organizational elements and optimize the entire process flow.

Findings

The correlation and regression analyses showed positive relations between the transformational leadership and team leadership styles and lean healthcare implementation. The results also indicated a strong relation between workforce flexibility and the implementation of lean healthcare.

Originality/value

With the use of a recently developed change management model, the Change Competence Model, the authors suggest leadership and workforce flexibility to be part of an organization’s change capacity as crucial success factor for a sustainable transformation to lean healthcare.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors like to thank the large number of staff at the Dutch University Medical Centre who have participated in the study; Ten Have Change Management for facilitating Lisa van Rossum and Wouter ten Have in doing this research; and LIDZ: a Dutch network for lean healthcare for facilitating Kjeld Aij in participating in this research. All authors contributed to the writing of this paper and approved the final manuscript. The authors have no conflicts of interest in regards to this study.

Citation

van Rossum, L., Aij, K.H., Simons, F.E., van der Eng, N. and ten Have, W.D. (2016), "Lean healthcare from a change management perspective: The role of leadership and workforce flexibility in an operating theatre", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 475-493. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-06-2014-0090

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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