Analysis of the lean healthcare utilization in the context of pharmaceutical services

Resumen

Background: Expenses with medicines are relevant and growing in health sector. Therefore, Pharmaceutical Services (PS) operations are designed to play a significant role in improving the social and economic contexts of health.

Objective: This article aims to analyze if the Lean Healthcare (LH) practices have been contributing to the improvement of the PS processes.

Methods: This study is based on PRISMA guidelines. The search was made in the literature through databases, such as Web of Science, Scopus, Medline (via PubMed), and Embase. In this study, 2878 identified papers were screened. Articles published up to the end of 2017 (and considering a 10-year period) were surveyed. In total, 43 studies met the pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria for data analysis in this work, 37 of which were published in 25 periodicals and six in congresses.

Results: United States and United Kingdom concentrated 65% of the articles. A predominance of studies was observed in the context of the Hospital Pharmacy sector, emphasizing the LH practices in the Distribution and Use steps in the PS context.

Conclusion: The literature on lean thinking applied in the specific context of the PS is relatively recent and scarce, highlighting a more pronounced growth in recent years. It was verified that LH practices in PS have been applied with more emphasis on reducing time and waste of resources, while contributing to process improvement and increased patient safety.