ISO and Lean Quality Management Systems in Healthcare

Currently, in the healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan and many other countries, ISO standards are mandatory, and also in some countries the Lean Production System is used. In the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Health issued guidelines for the implementation of lean technologies in healthcare organizations in 2017. However, the introduction of Lean technologies is not yet mandatory and has not become widespread in medical organizations in our country. In this regard, information on Lean technologies, experience of their application and effectiveness in healthcare organizations is useful for our medical managers and workers. Goal. Analysis of literature data on ISO and Lean quality management systems, their comparison, experience of application in healthcare organizations and efficiency. Material and methods. For this analysis, we searched for information on the issue with a depth of up to 20 years. Search for publications on the topic of the review was carried out in the databases of PubMed / MEDLINE, PMC, EMBASE, Web of Since, as well as a broad search through the browsers Google.com and Yahoo.com. The search criteria were combinations of terms: quality management system, healthcare, and lean production. Results and discussion. The description of the main features of the quality management systems ISO and Lean, as well as their comparison have been made. Information on the use of these systems in healthcare organizations is given. Currently, the Lean manufacturing system has been implemented in all healthcare organizations in the province of Saskatchewan (Canada), and a large-scale implementation has begun in the Russian Federation. Many medical organizations are implementing Lean system on their own initiative. Most publications have positive feedback on the Lean application. However, there are also several critical articles that the published positive reports lack a strong evidence base. In addition, it is impossible to compare the reports of different organizations due to the lack of a unified system for evaluating the effectiveness of Lean. Conclusion. The Lean manufacturing system is increasingly being used in healthcare organizations. Mostly positive results of Lean application are reported. However, the issue of its effectiveness in healthcare requires further research, since most of the reports cannot be considered as hard evidence. Keywords: quality management system, quality of care, lean management, customer satisfaction