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The rise of the mean age incremented the occurrence of femur fractures with respect to the past, leading thus to serious consequences, as regards morbidity and socio-economic impact. The direction of the A.O.R.N. Cardarelli of Naples has introduced a DTAP whose aim was the reduction of LOS. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the introduction of DTAP, employing Lean Thinking and Six Sigma methodology based on the DMAIC cycle. To evaluate the effectiveness of DTAP, two groups of patients have been observed for 14 months (before and after the implementation of DTAP).

Statistical tests were performed on the groups and graphics were provided to visualize the decrease of LOS (29.9 per cent). The overall population was also divided in subgroups according to six variables potentially influencing LOS.

Authors considered six variables of influences; yet, others could be taken into account in the future.

The decrease of costs due to the management of elderly patients with femur fracture, the optimization of care processes in hospitals and a faster recovery for patients is the tangible contribute of DTAP.

The implementation of DTAP allowed the hospital to obtain a significant reduction of LOS with a consequently decrease of costs alleviating the hospital and the society from the socio-economic burden and the morbidity of this pathology.

Since healthcare spending accounts for approximately 6.6 per cent of the gross domestic product, reducing waste in health facilities is necessary to generate significant cost savings. After previous work concerning the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) to hip surgery, the purpose of this paper is to use LSS as the correct methodology to analyse a clinical pathway. Fast track surgery was introduced to the Complex Operative Unit of Orthopaedic and Traumatology of the University Hospital “Federico II” to improve quality and further reduce costs associated with prosthetic hip replacement surgery.

The DMAIC (Define, measure, analyse, improve, control) roadmap was used as the typical problem-solving approach of the LSS methodology. A rigorous process of defining, measuring, analysing, improving and controlling business problems can be used to reach fixed goals. The paper was written following the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRES Guidelines).

In this work, the authors found that multiple variables could influence the length of hospital stay (LOS) for inpatient treatment, thereby increasing patient management costs due to longer periods of hospitalisation. Therefore, LSS analysis of the implemented corrective actions demonstrated the efficacy and efficiency of the novel protocol. The average LOS was reduced from 10.66 to 7.8 days (−26.8 per cent).

The introduction of fast track surgery was validated through a rigorous LSS analysis, which demonstrated that the new protocol benefitted both patients and the hospital.

One of the biggest challenges in the health sector is that of costs compared to economic resources and the quality of services. Hospitals register a progressive increase in expenditure due to the aging of the population. In fact, hip and knee arthroplasty surgery are mainly due to primary osteoarthritis that affects the elderly population. This study was carried out with the aim of analysing the introduction of the fast track surgery protocol, through the lean Six Sigma, on patients undergoing knee and hip prosthetic replacement surgery. The goal was to improve the arthroplasty surgery process by reducing the average length of stay (LOA) and hospital costs

Lean Six Sigma was applied to evaluate the arthroplasty surgery process through the DMAIC cycle (define, measure, analyse, improve and control) and the lean tools (value stream map), adopted to analyse the new protocol and improve process performance. The dataset consisted of two samples of patients: 54 patients before the introduction of the protocol and 111 patients after the improvement. Clinical and demographic variables were collected for each patient (gender, age, allergies, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) score).

The results showed a 12.70% statistically significant decrease in LOS from an overall average of 8.72 to 7.61 days. Women patients without allergies, with a low ASA score not suffering from diabetes and cardiovascular disease showed a significant a reduction in hospital days with the implementation of the FTS protocol. Only the age variable was not statistically significant.

The introduction of the FTS in the orthopaedic field, analysed through the LSS, demonstrated to reduce LOS and, consequently, costs. For each individual patient, there was an economic saving of € 445.85. Since our study takes into consideration a dataset of 111 patients post-FTS, the overall economic saving brought by this study amounts to €49,489.35.

Head and neck cancers are multi-factorial diseases that can affect many sides of people's life and are due to a lot of risk factors. According to their characteristics, the treatment can be surgical, use of radiation or chemotherapy. The use of a surgical treatment can lead to surgical infections that are a main theme in medicine. At the University hospital of Naples “Federico II”, two antibiotics were employed to tackle the issue of the infections and they are compared in this paper to find which one implies the lowest length of hospital stay (LOS) and the reduction of infections.

The Six Sigma methodology and its problem-solving strategy DMAIC (define, measure, analyse, improve, control), already employed in the healthcare sector, were used as a tool of a health technology assessment between two drugs. In this paper the DMAIC roadmap is used to compare the Ceftriaxone (administered to a group of 48 patients) and the association of Cefazolin plus Clindamycin (administered to a group of 45 patients).

The results show that the LOS of patients treated with Ceftriaxone is lower than those who were treated with the association of Cefazolin plus Clindamycin, the difference is about 41%. Moreover, a lower number of complications and infections was found in patients who received Ceftriaxone. Finally, a greater number of antibiotic shifts was needed by patients treated with Cefazolin plus Clindamycin.

While the paper enhances clearly the advantages for patients' outcomes regarding the LOS and the number of complications, it did not analyse the costs of the two antibiotics.

Employing the Ceftriaxone would allow the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery to obtain lower LOS and a limited number of complications/infections for recovered patients, consequently reducing the hospitalization costs.

There is a double value in this paper: first of all, the comparison between the two antibiotics gives an answer to one of the main issues in medicine that is the reduction of hospital-acquired infections; secondly, the Six Sigma through its DMAIC cycle can be employed also to compare two biomedical technologies as a tool of health technology assessment studies.

Health care organisations implement lean six sigma (LSS) methodology to achieve improved performance in terms of cost, quality and productivity. However, the way it gets implemented differs between organisations. Hence, this paper deal with a review of case studies describing the implementation of LSS in health care organisations to understand the nuances of implementation and identify future research directions.

The journal articles indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus database were filtered out. In total, 154 articles were evaluated using specific structural dimensions to categorise the literature into various groups, and content analysis was performed to synthesise the same.

This review revealed that the number of articles publishing the application of LSS in health care has been increasing in the last five years. Academic hospitals play a pivotal role to bridge the gap between LSS theory and practice. Despite this fact, certain themes remain unexplored. Not many studies are available that document the application of LSS in non-clinical areas such as pharmacy, internal logistics, maintenance and medical records. Only 20% of articles mentioned the post-intervention data up to three years, thus questioning the sustainability aspect of the achieved improvements.

Various research gaps were identified, which can be used by the researchers to build the body of knowledge in the domain of LSS in health care.

This review provides a diversified view regarding the utility of LSS in the health care scenario. The findings will provide valuable insights for the health care practitioners regarding tools, techniques, drivers and performance measures.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to review only the case studies that describe the implementation of LSS in the health care sector.

The reduction of costs has a more and more relevant role in the healthcare context, therefore, a large effort is done by health providers to this aim, for example, by reducing the length of hospital stay (LOS) of patients undergoing surgery. Fast track surgery fits perfectly this issue and was applied to patients undergoing knee replacement surgery due to Osteoarthritis, one of the most common diseases of aged population. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Lean six sigma was applied to analyze the implementation of fast track surgery through the define, measure, analyze, improve, control roadmap, used as a typical problem-solving approach. It is characterized by five operational phases, which make possible the achievement of fixed goals through a rigorous process of defining, measuring, analyzing, improving and controlling business problems.

The corrective action, consisting in the application of fast track surgery, improved both effectiveness and efficiency of the process of care. The average length of hospital stay (LOS) was reduced from 8.34 to 6.68 days (–19.9 percent) and its standard deviation from 2.41 to 1.99 days (–17.1 percent). The statistical significance of this decrease was verified by means of proper tests. Moreover, some variables influencing the LOS were identified.

The follow up and the satisfaction of patients were not analyzed and could be a future development of this study.

Patients will experience a faster recovery while the hospital will benefit from a rise of available beds. The effect is a general improvement of hospital management.

The introduction of fast track surgery for patients undergoing knee replacement surgery made significantly reduce LOS and, consequently, costs’ with a money saving of more than 50,000 euro per year.

Universities are an example of institutions that aggregate people around work/study who consume water, energy and produce waste daily in their activities, generating an impact on the environment. The purpose of this study is to determine the quantity, composition and recycling potential of waste generated at the Faculdade UnB Planaltina (FUP) campus, of the University of Brasilia in the Federal District, Brazil, to develop a waste management strategy compatible with national legislation and sustainable global practices.

This study was based on conducting on-site visits to identify the sources of generation, hazardousness, management and gravimetric characteristics of residual waste from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, a selective collection was implemented on the FUP campus, and since then, actions to raise awareness for the selective disposal and monitoring of waste were conducted with the academic community.

The results showed that the campus generates 148 kg of waste/day, whereas the per capita generation is 92 g/day. The production of hazardous waste is related to campus laboratories which manage it under a specific program. The campus restaurant is the place that generates the most waste, of which organic waste is the most representative. When categorizing the waste generated on campus, the authors found that the majority are recyclables at 67% of the total. This category includes material composed of cardboard, paper and plastic, all able to be recycled in the Federal District.

The recyclable waste generated at the FUP campus is being diverted from the city’s landfill because they are donated to a recycling cooperative. These actions promote income generation, social inclusion of waste pickers and a circular economy, all in compliance with the National Solid Waste Policy. As a result, the FUP campus is more in line with Brazilian legislation and the global context of adopting sustainable waste management amongst higher education institutions.

This paper contributes to the literature on sustainability in higher education by reporting the process of implementation of a waste management strategy in a university campus. Further, it presents tools and methods that can be used to achieve sustainability in waste management. The study also identifies that the crucial factor for the success of such actions is the mobilization and participation of the academic community in the process. It does so by presenting findings demonstrating how the University of Brasilia has been concerned with adopting pro-environmental measures for sustainable development.

Lean Six Sigma in public and private healthcare organisations has received considerable attention over the last decade. Nevertheless, such process improvement methodologies are not generalizable, and their effective implementation relies on contextual variables. The purpose of this study is to explore the readiness of Italian hospitals for Lean Six Sigma and Quality Performance Improvement (LSS&QPI), with a focus on gender differences.

A survey comprising 441 healthcare professionals from public and private hospitals was conducted. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine the mean scores on the LSS&QPI dimensions based on hospital type, gender and their interaction.

The results showed that public healthcare professional are more aware of quality performance improvement initiatives than private healthcare professionals. Moreover, gender differences emerged according to the type of hospital, with higher awareness for men than women in public hospitals, whereas for private hospitals the opposite was true.

This study contributes to the Lean Six Sigma literature by focusing on the holistic assessment of LSS&QPI implementation.

This study informs healthcare managers about the revolution within healthcare organisations, especially public ones. Healthcare managers should spend time understanding Lean Six Sigma as a strategic orientation to promote the “lean hospital”, improving processes and fostering patient-centredness.

This is a preliminary study focussing on analysing inter-relationship between perceived importance of soft readiness factors such as gender dynamics as a missing jigsaw in the current literature. In addition, the research advances a holistic assessment of LSS&QPI, which sets it apart from the studies on single initiatives that have been documented to date.

The paper aims at enriching the knowledge of the application of lean management (LM) in emergency department (ED), structuring the methodology for implementing LM projects and summarizing the relevant dimensions of LM adoption in ED.

In accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement, a systematic literature review has been performed, extracting a database of 34 papers. To answer the research purpose, a descriptive and content analyses have been carried out.

The descriptive analysis demonstrates that the dealt topic is worldwide emerging and multidisciplinary as it arouses interest by medical and engineering communities. Despite the heterogeneity in the adopted methodology, a framework can be grasped from the literature review. It points out the phases and activities, the tools and techniques and the enablers to be considered for guiding the developing of LM project in ED.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview on how to adopt LM in ED, contributing to fill in the gap emerged in the literature. From a practical perspective, this paper provides healthcare managers with a synthesis of the best managerial practices and guidelines in developing a LM project in ED.

Acrylamide is a compound found in several food products. Due to the toxicity of this compound, research also seeks strategies to modify industrial and homemade processes, impacting on the reduction of the compound. This paper aims to discuss the aspects surrounding the presence of acrylamide in foods.

Published literature on the presence of acrylamide in foods and on its effects has been reviewed. This paper explores the importance of this compound, summarizes the knowledge of its formation and gathers data on its incidence in food and the possibilities of mitigation. Special attention is given to an evaluation of the toxicological tests applied, to analyze whether acrylamide can be considered as a food safety problem.

Human exposure to food with high levels of acrylamide varies in their levels regarding the consumption of food in the diet and not only by the level of the compound present in them. Although the compound is well defined as toxic to humans, the association between its intake and most common cancers may not be directly related.

Depending on the approach of the researchers, contradictory results are obtained, showing the importance of this topic to the development of healthy food products. Further research is still needed to validate the potential effects of acrylamide on human health.