Lean thinking involves more than just eliminating waste; through its five guiding principles—value, value chain, continuous flow, pull production, and perfection—its successful applications are commonly found in the manufacturing sector. Although its application and benefits to companies is no longer contested, it is rare to find works that consolidate applications of lean thinking in sectors that are unconventional, such as healthcare and government. Cases on Lean Thinking Applications in Unconventional Systems allows readers to broaden their view on lean thinking applications and visualize insights for research. It presents case studies and applications of lean thinking within several different industries. Covering topics such as emergency care units, standardized work, and national humanization policy, this case book is an essential resource for engineers, hospital administrators, healthcare professionals, IT managers, government officials, students and faculty of higher education, researchers, and academicians.

There is significant debate regarding the quality of the national health system of the United States relative to those of other countries. The U.S. healthcare system has been heavily criticized as a highly inefficient, disorganized, fragmented, and under-resourced primary care system that contributes to high healthcare costs, high rates of uninsured individuals, and a number of health problems in comparison to the situation in other Western nations. Further, the United States is currently the only wealthy industrialized country that has not achieved universal health coverage. Together, these reasons help explain why important health indicators have been deteriorating recently. Assessing the Need for a Comprehensive National Health System in the United States seeks to thoroughly examine several key aspects related to the U.S. health system and presents different perspectives, provides facts and data-based assessment, and offers alternative strategies, policies, and realistic options towards a better and healthier U.S. society. Covering key topics such as telehealth, social justice, and healthcare workers, this reference work is ideal for health professionals, nurses, government officials, policymakers, researchers, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Over the years, the complexity of health systems has grown due to the continuous and constant introduction of new technologies—process, production, and organizational—which have increased the number of stakeholders involved, creating new relationships and new channels through which the various subjects interact. It is necessary to highlight the critical issues and opportunities relating to the innovation of the organization and governance of health services as well as the complementarity of management and leadership. The new health needs require a Copernican revolution in the organization of services: not only offering individual services but also effective permanent care of the patient within institutional and professional assistance networks and effective, efficient, and appropriate pathways. This requires that on an organizational and managerial level, the internal relationships between the branches of the healthcare companies must be reviewed and closer relationships built with the managing bodies of the social and welfare services. The Handbook of Research on Complexities, Management, and Governance in Healthcare proceeds with a reasoned reconstruction of healthcare issues through the problems connected to the complexities, management, and governance in healthcare in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses both the ethical side of health and the economic, organizational, and legal content. Covering topics such as healthcare innovation, taxation for public health, and waste disposal, this major reference work is a comprehensive resource for healthcare administration, directors, executive boards, lawyers, sociologists, government officials and policymakers, students and faculty of higher education, libraries, researchers, and academicians.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of health data, technology, and access to health informatics. The applications of several information technologies in the context of healthcare are proving instrumental in pandemic control. These technologies were already actively used in the healthcare sector before the pandemic. However, the pandemic has resulted in researchers reassessing how these technologies could have better assisted with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they may mitigate the threat of future pandemics. Health Informatics and Patient Safety in Times of Crisis provides a fresh perspective on how healthcare informatics has managed the current pandemic and how improved healthcare informatics could help in a future crisis. Covering topics such as digital public health, misinformation, and knowledge management, this premier reference source is an indispensable resource for medical professionals, hospital administrators, public health officials, community leaders, international leaders, libraries, medical students, medical professors, researchers, and academicians.

Bioinspiration is recognized by the World Health Organization as having great promise in transforming and democratizing health systems while improving the quality, safety, and efficiency of standard healthcare in order to offer patients the tremendous opportunity to take charge of their own health. This phenomenon can enable great medical breakthroughs by helping healthcare providers improve patient care, make accurate diagnoses, optimize treatment protocols, and more. Unfortunately, the consequences can be serious if those who finance, design, regulate, or use artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for health do not prioritize ethical principles and obligations in terms of human rights and preservation of the private life. Advanced Bioinspiration Methods for Healthcare Standards, Policies, and Reform is the fruit of the fusion of AI and medicine, which brings together the latest empirical research findings in the areas of AI, bioinspiration, law, ethics, and medicine. It assists professionals in optimizing the potential benefits of AI models and bioinspired algorithms in health issues while mitigating potential dangers by examining the complex issues and innovative solutions that are linked to healthcare standards, policies, and reform. Covering topics such as genetic algorithms, health surveillance cameras, and hybrid classification algorithms, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for AI specialists, hospital administrators, health professionals, healthcare scientists, students and educators of higher education, government officials, researchers, and academicians.

Within the past decade, we have witnessed an increased adoption of emerging technologies as well as the exponential pace of scientific discoveries within all industries. The level of digital innovation and digital transformation experienced in healthcare and life sciences has been markedly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a new sense of urgency to design and develop a new global health ecosystem that is more suitable for the digital era and future generations. Deploying precision medicine solutions that can redefine the way we diagnose and treat disease, as well as shift the focus towards a customized human-centered approach, such as those offered by personalized medicine, can be a viable sustainable model. Digital Identity in the New Era of Personalized Medicine highlights the latest trends in precision medicine and the important role digital identity plays in upholding ethical values, safeguarding human rights, and practicing responsible personalized medicine. It provides an overview of the current healthcare legal and regulatory landscapes as well as some of the major challenges and opportunities we face in this digital, virtual, and precision medicine-powered era. Covering topics such as data-centric compliance, global health, and identity management, this book is an essential resource for doctors, healthcare administration, academicians, clinicians, health and bio-tech executives, researchers, medical professionals, medical engineers, medical students, and government officials looking for a resource that addresses challenges in healthcare including trust, privacy, data integrity, and ownership.

Process innovations - an improved way of doing things – help firms achieve higher-level performance by reducing the time and cost to produce a product or perform a service, and increasing productivity and growth. This book provides a comprehensive examination of process innovations occurring in the global fashion industry, with a focus on fashion brands from USA, Italy, and Japan. It offers practical insights for enhancing efficiency in the supply chain as well as management process such as work routines, information flow, and organization structures. Using case analyses, this book will help readers to grasp how successful fashion companies optimize their operations and advance their competitive position by integrating process innovations into their supply chain and management systems.

*Major New York Times Bestseller *More than 2.6 million copies sold *One of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year *Selected by The Wall Street Journal as one of the best nonfiction books of the year *Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient *Daniel Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's best-selling The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Topping bestseller lists for almost ten years, Thinking, Fast and Slow is a contemporary classic, an essential book that has changed the lives of millions of readers.

This book highlights the concepts of lean manufacturing that help to achieve the objectives of sustainability in a global competitive atmosphere. Lean can help to lower the manufacturing cost in the rising labour and material cost market. Lean is based on various fundamental concepts such as Kaizen, Kanban, Zidoka, 5S and Six Sigma, which aim at reducing process waste for efficiency and productivity that are discussed in this book. In addition, the technological changes such as introduction of Internet technologies and Industry 4.0 are taken care by the lean concepts, which are also addressed in this book.

Lean Behavioral Health: The Kings County Hospital Story is the first lean book that focuses entirely on behavioral health. Using the principles of the Toyota Production System, or lean, the contributors in this groundbreaking volume share their experience in transforming a major safety net public hospital after a tragic and internationally publicized event. As the largest municipal hospital system in the United States, the New York City Health & Hospitals Corporation adopted lean as the transformational approach for all of its hospitals and clinics. Kings County Hospital Center, one of the largest providers of behavioral health care in the country, continues on its transformational journey utilizing lean's techniques. While not every event was fully successful, most were and every event, including failures, increased the knowledge base about how to continually improve quality and safety. Having made major changes, Kings County Hospital Center is now recognized as a center for transformation and quality receiving high marks from oversight agencies. This volume begins by describing the basic principles of the lean approach-adding value, eliminating waste, and tapping the organization's line staff to create and sustain dramatic change. An overview of the use of lean from a quality improvement perspective follows. Lean tools are applied to many services that comprise the behavioral health value stream and these stories are highlighted. The experts in identifying waste and adding value are the line staff whose voices are captured in the clinical chapters. Insights learned by event participants are emphasized as teaching points to provide context for what has worked or has not worked at Kings County Hospital Center. While the burning platform at Kings County Hospital Center was white hot and while the Department of Justice scrutinized its quality of patient care, the application of lean methods and tools has transformed the hospital into a potential model for behavioral health programs facing the challenges of the present healthcare environment. It is a must-have story for clinicians, administrators and other leaders in the mental health field devoted to improving quality and safety at their hospitals and clinics.