Using Lean Tools to Reduce Patient Length of Stay in Inpatient Settings

Patient Length of Stay (LOS) has a significant impact on healthcare organizations’ finance and human resources. Excess patient days require extra costs and additional staffing that exacerbates the existing staffing deficiencies and reduces staff satisfaction. This paper analyzes how to apply the Lean Six Sigma approach to reduce patient LOS in healthcare systems. To answer this question, we improved and redesigned the care progression, discharge planning, and collaboration process at a tertiary hospital in the State of Maryland and Delaware. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the improvement of the healthcare system are cost savings, number of days reduction, the 30-day readmission rate, and the percentage increase in the discharged patients. Our results show a significant effect on care progression and discharge planning and collaboration process with an average of 0.6-day reduction in Hospital A and 1.0-day reduction in Hospital B per patient’s Geometric Mean of Length of Stay (GMLOS). This study emphasizes the need to consider multidisciplinary rounds and the impact of reducing patients’ LOS and improving healthcare organizations’ overall performance.