A Systematic Mapping Study of Lean Supply Chain in Hospital

Hospital organizations face ongoing pressure to cut costs, waiting times, and errors while also increasing the security of patients and services due to the massive volumes of resources they consume. Organizations in the global hospital sector have chosen to use the Lean Supply Chain (LSC) methodology’s tools in recent years to optimize capacity and resources by cutting out waste and improving daily operations and hospital processes. This research uses a comprehensive mapping analysis to determine the key hospital target areas, or issue domains, for LSC in hospitals and to present a list of the most popular methods for doing so. Additionally, the goal of this article is to look into several contingency elements that might have affected hospital organizations’ choice of LSC target areas or how they applied LSC techniques. A total of 85 significant papers published between 1979 and 2023 were obtained, expanded upon, and summarized using the science mapping method. Co-occurring keywords, prominent papers, collaboration across countries and institutions, journal allocation and co-citation, and publication years are all shown visually in the statistics. The results help to paint a comprehensive picture of the state of the art, hotspots, and scholarly horizons of LSC in hospital research. Additionally, it offers heuristic ideas to practitioners to manage hospital logistics and healthcare.