Operationalizing lean health assets

To demonstrate the potential of employing unconventional facility/facilities management (FM) performance indicators in healthcare settings to enable more strategic conversations between FM and business users concerning asset performance.

The theoretical background for a Lean asset approach and a high-level analysis of data from hospital trusts in England have been published elsewhere. This paper reports on the first uses of that approach in operational settings.

Observations are drawn primarily from three case studies.

The individual studies support the premise that the conventional emphasis on cost per square meter (m(2)) as a preeminent measure of FM disguises a portfolio of too much underutilized space. They provide a means of putting a healthcare estates strategy in terms that will engage business users.

Despite a growing interest in Lean approaches in healthcare, the philosophy has not yet been extended to the estate. This study demonstrates that alternative benchmarks are possible.