Objective To analyze the application of lean healthcare management in optimizing services in foreign operating rooms, and provide a theoretical reference for further optimizing service processes in domestic operating rooms with lean healthcare management. Methods PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched literature about lean healthcare management in optimizing foreign hospital operating room service process. The search period was from the establishment of databases to November 2024. The number of publications, publishing institutions, authors, citation frequencies, keywords, the use of lean management tools and the improvement status were analyzed.Results A total of 71 literatures were included. Among them, 17 literatures were published from 2008 to 2014, and the number of related literatures increased significantly since 2015, with 54 literatures published by 2024; 9 literatures were published by universities and 62 literatures were published by hospitals. In terms of the distribution of countries and regions where the literatures were published, there were 34 literatures from the United States, 12 from the United Kingdom, 5 from Italy, 4 from Switzerland, and 3 from Canada. The keywords basically presented the combination ofthemes related to operating room management and lean healthcare management improvement fields, such as lean six sigma, quality improvement, and operating room efficiency. The five lean tools with the highest frequency of occurrence in the 71 included literatures were value stream mapping, fishbone diagram, A3 report, PDCA cycle management, and 5S. Conclusions There is an imbalance in the development of lean healthcare management research, with the number of publications in developed countries being far higher than that in developing countries. Lean healthcare management is conducive to improving surgical safety, work efficiency, and patient-doctor satisfaction. Lean healthcare management should further adapt to the actual situation, unify the lean management indicators in operating rooms, conduct cross-departmental cooperation, maximize the effectiveness of lean improvement tools, and achieve modern medical management.
Objective To analyze the current application status of lean healthcare management in hospital pharmacy services domestically and internationally, and provide evidence support for optimizing pharmacy service practices. Methods The literature on the application of lean healthcare management to pharmacy services in domestic and foreign hospitals published in China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, PubMed, SinoMed from January 1, 2006 to June 30, 2025 was systematically searched. The characteristics, application scenarios, lean tools, and implementation effects included in the literature were analyzed. Results Finally, 22 articles were included, including 7 English articles and 15 Chinese articles. The publication time of literature in domestic and foreign research showed different trends. Foreign research showed a sustained and stable number of publications, while domestic research showed an overall trend of being flat in the early stage and active in recent times. The application of lean healthcare in pharmacy services mainly involved optimizing outpatient pharmacy service processes (8 articles), managing inpatient pharmacy operations (9 articles), specialized management of ward pharmacies (2 articles), and management of intravenous medication dispensing centers (2 articles). The included literature usually used multidimensional indicators to evaluate the improvement effectiveness of lean healthcare management. In China, it focused highly on patient waiting time for medication retrieval (7 articles) and patient/medical staff satisfaction (6 articles), while in foreign countries, it mainly involved drug dispensing/turnover time. The application of drug dispensing/turnover time was relatively balanced in domestic and foreign literature (5 domestic articles and 3 foreign articles). The included literature covered 11 lean tools, with the most frequently used tools being value stream mapping. More than half of the studies used a combination of multiple tools to improve the model, with foreign applications highly concentrated on value stream maps (6 articles), and domestic tool choices being more diverse. Conclusions There are differences in the development stages and evaluation focuses of lean healthcare management research related to pharmacy services in domestic and foreign hospitals, as well as the application models of lean tools.
