Analysis of the Relationship Between Knowledge Management and Lean Tools During Lean Implementation in Hospitals

During the last two decades, lean healthcare has received increasingattention from both researchers and practitioners because it plays an imperativerole in quality and safety clinical process improvement. Although there is muchevidence of the positive results of the paradigm implementation at the micro level,only in few cases the methodology is implemented at meso level or improvementsare observed at organizational level. Among the main factors leading to the failureof meso implementation is the lack of widespread knowledge of lean tools andconcepts within the organization. The lean implementation process at the mesolevel require high efforts to manage the transfer, sharing, integration, and transfor mation of lean knowledge within the organization. Thus, many researchers havepositively assumed knowledge management (KM) as a critical success factor oflean sustainability and meso implementation. Although, the relationship of KMand lean sustainability have gradually become a hot topic, few scholars have inves tigated this issue in healthcare sector. Based on literature review focusing on thekey characteristics of the lean healthcare implementation process, this article aimsto bring out the relationships between lean tools, KM and lean sustainability inhospital setting. Results provide some relevant insights for hospitals applying thelean paradigm namely: KM is a critical success factor in disseminating and sus taining lean methodology and lean knowledge degree is strongly influenced bythe use of lean tools.