Abstract

A b s t r a c t To meet the increased clinical demands of our hospital expansion, improve quality, and reduce costs, our tertiary care, pediatric core laboratory used the Toyota Production System lean processing to reorganize our 24-hour, 7 d/wk core laboratory. A 4-month, consultant-driven process removed waste, led to a physical reset of the space to match the work flow, and developed a work cell for our random access analyzers. In addition, visual controls, single piece flow, standard work, and “5S ” were instituted. The new design met our goals as reflected by achieving and maintaining improved turnaround time (TAT; mean for creatinine reduced from 54 to 23 minutes) with increased testing volume (20%),