Implementation of the Lean Healthcare System in the Emergency Room of the Clinical Hospital of the Federal University of Uberlândia: A Case Study.

The objective of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of the implementation of the lean healthcare system at the emergency room of the Clinical Hospital of the Federal University of Uberlândia, based on a comparison of hospital indicators obtained over the three phases corresponding to the period of one year before the implementation (T1), the year during the implementation (T2) and one year after implementation (T3). The methodology applied through this study can be classified as a case study that is exploratory and descriptive and developed in stages. Based herein on the search for hospital indicators, as occurred in the implementation of a lean process at the Clinical Hospital Emergency Department, along with a description of the implemented lean system. During the collection period of data relevant to the National Emergency Department Overcrowding Score and Length of Stay Indicator, the motivation of the teams grew, but with a notable tension between municipal management and hospital management. It was found that, despite the fluctuations, the patient length of stay in the Emergency Room remained high. With the exception of the variable of female deaths before 24 h of hospitalization, all other variables showed percentage increases before and after the intervention. This study reported the difficulties encountered by HC-UFU in implementing the lean project in an emergency room, thus ensuring that other institutions that intend to implement this project do not make the same types of mistakes.

A superlotação dos serviços de emergência hospitalar como evidência de baixo desempenho organizacional / The overcrowding of hospital emergency services as evidence of low organizational performance

O estudo teve como objetivo investigar a superlotação nos serviços de emergência hospitalar (SEH). Para tal, foram elaborados dois artigos, já publicados. O primeiro, elaborado durante a crise dos serviços de emergência hospitalar de 2005, discutiu as características estruturantes do Programa QUALISUS do Ministério da Saúde do Brasil, em curso de implantação, analisou as especificidades desses serviços e fez algumas considerações sobre o sistema de saúde do município do Rio de Janeiro, sede do início do programa QUALISUS. Com a complexidade do cenário onde o programa era implementado, exemplificado pela grave crise na assistência àqueles que demandavam cuidados nos serviços de emergência, assim como as características da matriz da qualidade sugerida pelo programa, cuja ênfase é na reorganização da rede dos serviços de emergência e na recepção dos serviços de emergência hospitalar, voltados para o acolhimento e a classificação de risco, optou-se pelo aprofundamento do estudo sobre os SEH. A partir de uma revisão sistemática, discutiu-se as intervenções voltadas para solucionar o problema da superlotação dos Serviços de Emergência Hospitalar, e identificou-se evidências de baixo desempenho organizacional. A revisão sistemática partiu de um universo de 2.992 títulos, onde foram selecionados 822 títulos para análise de resumos e textos integrais, entre o período de 2000 a junho de 2007. A superlotação foi caracterizada como um fenômeno mundial, com causas e conseqüências. As intervenções que interferiram positivamente no principal indicador da superlotação, o tempo de permanência no SEH, apontaram para a melhoria do fluxo de saída dos pacientes dos serviços de emergência hospitalar, através do aumento do desempenho organizacional. Os resultados dessa revisão desmistificaram as soluções que aumentam as barreiras de acesso ou melhoram a estrutura...

The study aimed to investigate the overcrowding in the public hospitals emergency rooms (ER). For such, two articles had been elaborated and are already published. The first one is related to the crisis of the public hospitals emergency rooms services which took place in the year of 2005 in Brazil. It presents the major characteristics of the Ministry of Health QUALISUS Program, analyzes the specificities of these services and made some considerations about the city of Rio de Janeiro health system, QUALISUS headquarter. Given the complexity of the broad picture where the program was implemented, leaded by the serious crisis in the emergency rooms medical care, as well as the characteristics of the quality matrix suggested by the program, whose emphasis is the reorganization of the emergency services network and in the reception of the services of hospital emergency driven toward the shelter and the classification of risk, it was decided to deepen the research on the emergency room aspects. From a thorough systematic review based on a universe of 2.992 titles, 882 full articles and abstracts from the period between 2.000 and 2.007 were analyzed. Overcrowding was characterized as a world-wide phenomenon, with causes and consequences. Among the main aspects, this literature raise up a range of interventions to solve the emergency room overcrowding. Low organizational performance is a scientific finding. Interventions that had modified positively the main indicator of overcrowding, the time of permanence in the emergency room, dealt with the improvement of the patients discharge from emergency rooms through the increase of the organizational performance. The results of this systematic revision had demystified the solutions that increase access barriers...