Sustainability through Lean Healthcare and Operational Performance in the Private Hospitals: A Proposed Framework

The Strategy Canvas that has been reported in the Eleventh Malaysia Plan, has targeted the government to improve community healthcare and yet to deliver a better service health outcomes with the strengthening collaboration among private sectors and Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs). To have a better health outcomes, lean management will be implemented to reach efficiency and optimize resources by improving work processes in the organization. But how far the private hospitals enable to survive in the long period where it can be seen the statistic of number of private hospitals is fluctuate. It indicates there are some possible factors could happen that affect the operations of the private hospitals and yet the profitability highly vulnerable. Certainly, one of the main reasons for the private hospitals is how they tolerate unnecessary waste in the organization. As such, the researcher will look deeply into how lean healthcare practices and operational performance will lead to sustainability in the private hospital by taking into account the triple bottom line; namely the financial, social, and environmental elements. Furthermore, a conceptual framework will be presented in this paper

Sociotechnical Aspects of Lean and Sustainability

In recent years, lean healthcare has been used by numerous scholars as a major trend for exploring the purpose of practicing lean healthcare in an operational context but apparently not considering the human or social factors. Furthermore, less studies have been conducted on how social or sociotechnical aspects of lean enables the achievement of sustainability in healthcare organizations, which also includes the three main pillars, namely economic, social, and environmental aspect. Therefore, this paper intended to examine the link between sociotechnical aspects of lean and sustainability in the healthcare sector. It also discussed theoretical approaches that explain these variables, namely Sociotechnical and Stakeholder theories. Finally, this paper has given important significance for academic researchers who intend to study the sociotechnical aspects of lean and sustainability as well as practitioners who deal with complex problems. Conclusions and future works are also included in this paper

Lean Healthcare Practices and Operational Performance: Safety Climate as a Moderator

The main propose of this study was to examine the relationship between lean healthcare practices (LHP) (operational and sociotechnical aspects) and operational performance among Malaysias private hospitals. Specifically it aimed at investigating both the moderating role of safety climate on the relationship between operational aspects and sociotechnical aspects on operational performance. Quantitative method was applied for this study with the questionnaires were randomly distributed to 118 private hospitals in Malaysia as the sample. The data collected were analyzed by performing the PLS-SEM technique. The results indicate that operational aspects and sociotechnical aspects improved operational performance, showing that these are the important elements that should be seriously considered by practitioners. However, safety climate as a moderator failed to support the relationship between operational aspects and sociotechnical aspects on operational performance. These findings have contributed theoretically, practically and methodologically with imperative implications to academicians, policy-makers and private hospitals specifically