Zhuoyuan Liang, Lijie Ren, Ting Wang, Huoyou Hu, Weiping Li, Yaping Wang, Dehong Liu, Yi Lie
The efficacy of thrombolytic therapy for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) decreases when the administration of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is delayed. Derived from Toyota Production System, lean production aims to create top-quality products with high-efficiency procedures, a concept that easily applies to emergency medicine. In this study, we aimed to determine whether applying lean principles to flow optimization could hasten the initiation of thrombolysis. A multidisciplinary team (Stroke Team) was organized to implement an ongoing, continuous loop of lean production that contained the following steps: decomposition, recognition, intervention, reengineering and assessment...
December 2016: Australasian Physical & Engineering Sciences in Medicine