An integrative approach to improving patient care pathways

Abstract

Purpose

Globally, healthcare managers continue to struggle with increasing demands for their services being delivered with limited or shrinking resources. It is, therefore, clear that systems, processes and practices need to change to meet these challenges. The purpose of this paper is to assess how integrating two improvement technologies, Lean and integrated care pathways (ICP) might help.

Design/methodology/approach

Lean and ICP in healthcare provide a platform to develop conceptual frameworks for integrating two approaches.

Findings

A conceptual integrated framework is provided to assist care pathway designers and implementers to consider the synergistic benefits of combining approaches to improvement.

Research limitations/implications

The authors provide a conceptual framework that requires empirically testing.

Practical implications

This research provides a conceptual framework to aid practitioners to improve healthcare design and delivery.

Originality/value

For the first time, the authors bring together two approaches to improving patient care pathway design and consider how these are linked in relation to improving healthcare delivery.

Citation

Williams, S. and Radnor, Z. (2018), "An integrative approach to improving patient care pathways", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 31 No. 7, pp. 810-821. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHCQA-07-2017-0132