Book Review: Clinical 5S for Healthcare

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Akio Takahara is the leading lean practitioner and expert on the 5S support system in Healthcare. In his book, he claims that 5S in Healthcare will do the following:

• Reduce human errors
• Prevent patient accidents
• Eliminate the waste of searching
• Better utilize available work space
• Increase patient and colleague satisfaction

It’s very refreshing to see a book like this focused on Healthcare – there is tremendous opportunity for improvement in patient experience as well as in reducing medical errors.

It’s a really good book, even if you’re not a lean practitioner in Healthcare. The examples are in Healthcare, but the principles of Lean and 5S can be applied to any environment.

I really enjoyed the section on Visual Management. Takahara explains the four aspects of Visual Management:

• Visualization allows you to see the condition of work
• Clarification helps us draw appropriate judgments
• Marking allows us to identify items
• Sharing Rules creates a sharing environment

I recommend this book for any Lean practitioner in Healthcare or any Lean practitioner in any field. A great read and I learned a lot from it.

	This post was written by Pete Abilla