An integrative approach to improving patient care pathways

Purpose: Globally, healthcare managers continue to struggle with increasing demands for their services being delivered with limited or shrinking resources. It is, therefore, clear that systems, processes and practices need to change to meet these challenges. The purpose of this paper is to assess how integrating two improvement technologies, Lean and integrated care pathways (ICP) might help. Design/methodology/approach: Lean and ICP in healthcare provide a platform to develop conceptual frameworks for integrating two approaches. Findings: A conceptual integrated framework is provided to assist care pathway designers and implementers to consider the synergistic benefits of combining approaches to improvement. Research limitations/implications: The authors provide a conceptual framework that requires empirically testing. Practical implications: This research provides a conceptual framework to aid practitioners to improve healthcare design and delivery. Originality/value: For the first time, the authors bring together two approaches to improving patient care pathway design and consider how these are linked in relation to improving healthcare delivery.