AN INVESTIGATION ON KAIZEN EVENTS IN A HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATION: CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR SOCIAL OUTCOME

The lean management is recognized as the amelioration paradigm to address the problems of healthcare organizations due to the well-proven benefits without high investments. This paradigm is implemented using kaizen events based on the A3 report to yield successful outcomes. However, most of these outcomes have focused only on technical system outcomes while social ones, that are related to the employee development, are often neglected. This study aims to fill this shortcoming by identifying determinant factors empirically that are related to the social system outcomes of a kaizen initiative developed at a public health care institution of Italy. Based on the findings, this research study confirms the importance to capture effectively the employee’s interest and to guarantee the good communication between workers during the kaizen initiative. Finally, some guidelines are proposed to effectively implement the lean management in healthcare organizations