14 November, 2018

The Southwest Lean Forum was created in 2018 by a working group consisting of representatives from educational, industry, government and public bodies. The strategic goal is to create an industry led forum that facilitates the sharing of Lean system experiences and best practices for the benefit of all members. A very successful second event took place on October 23rd in Cork University Hospital in association with the South West Lean Forum. The event entitled, The Lean Journey: Improving patient experience had over 60 attendees and the event was a great success. Participants were treated to a number of interesting discussions on Lean Sigma operations, an interactive workshop on brainstorming and presentations on practical real life case studies. Lean principles can successfully be applied in the healthcare enviroment to improve both hospital management and the patient experience. CAMMS at CIT have been assiting the CUH for a number of years in optimising the performance of the operating theatres, of which there are 20, including resource deployment and process issues. The hospital have seen substantial resource savings as a consequence of this work.