LEAN MANAGEMENT APPROACH IN HEALTHCARE SERVICES: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

Introduced for the purpose of overcoming the challenges emerging after World War II, Lean Management, a management approach that first showed itself in the automotive sector in Japan and after that has been accepted throughout the world, is based on the elimination of waste in the processes carried out in companies and the improvement of all processes for users. Over time, this approach which applied in almost all sectors, has also been applied in the healthcare services and positive results have been obtained for hospitals, employees and patients. In this study a bibliometric analysis method has been used with a view to examine the published articles about lean management approach in healthcare services by using certain parameters. In this view, the literature has been examined macroscopically and the characteristics and development process of scientific outputs within a specific research area can be followed. As a result of the analysis carried out, it has been reached that the largest number of article on lean management in healthcare services has been pubished in 2017 and most of them are in England. In addition, it has also been found that the journal named Journal of Health Organization And Management is the journal which has been published articles at most in this area. Although the number of publishing articles on lean management approach in healthcare services has increased in recent years, it has been seen important to make much more studies exhibited their benefits on health institutions, their employees and patients.