Role of Lean Six Sigma approach for enhancing the patient safety and quality improvement in the hospitals

ABSTRACT

The Lean Six Sigma is one the most effective methods of total quality management to continuously improve the quality performance of the organizations. This approach continuously improves the performance of healthcare organizations by reducing the number of errors towards patient safety. The present study investigates the influence of Lean Six Sigma on patient safety towards the quality improvement of Malaysian hospitals. This study applied a quantitative research approach and a stratified random sampling method to analyze 16 public and private hospitals. It was used a self-administered survey questionnaire to collect data from 364 respondents. This study developed a research model with four hypotheses. All hypotheses were tested using the Partial Least Squares – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) method. The research findings indicate that Lean Six Sigma has a strong positive and significant effect on patient safety and quality improvement of the hospitals. The results of the study also indicate that the Lean Six Sigma method indirectly influences the quality improvement of the hospitals through the mediating effect of patient safety. The present research findings provide a guideline for the practitioners of the healthcare organizations to implement the Lean Six Sigma approach to ensure greater patient safety towards the continuous quality improvement of the healthcare services.

KEYWORDS:

• Patient safety
• quality improvement
• Lean
• Six Sigma
• hospitals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Selim Ahmed

Selim Ahmed is an Associate Professor and head of business school, World University of Bangladesh. He received his PhD in Business Administration from International Islamic University Malaysia. He has published many articles in the peer reviewed journals such as International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, TQM Journal, Reviews on Environmental Health, International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, Humanomics, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, International Journal of Business and Systems Research, and others. His research area includes Quality Management, Lean Six Sigma, Service Management, Quality Improvement Process, Healthcare Management & etc.

Shatha Hawarna

Shatha Hawarna is an Assistant Professor at School of Business and Quality Management, Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, Dubai, UAE. He did PhD in Business Administration from International Islamic University Malaysia. Her research areas are business management quality management, service management and others.

Ibrahim Alqasmi

Ibrahim Alqasmi is an Assistant Professor at Public Health School of Health Sciences, Saudi Electronic University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He received his Master's and PhD in Healthcare Management from the University of Salford, UK. His research areas are healthcare management, public healthcare, patient safety, quality improvement and others.

Muhammad Mohiuddin

Muhammad Mohiuddin is an Associate Professor of International Business at Department of Management, Laval University. He is the Associate Editor, Transnational Corporations Review. His research interests focus on emerging markets and sustainable offshore outsourcing. He published more than 40 peer reviewed articles and won étudiant-chercheur étoile (STAR-Researcher) Award (FQRSC), “Best paper awards” ASAC 2018, ASAC 2014, ASAC 2012 and AGBA, 2013 and Hon'ble Mention Award in AIB-NE, 2013. He was also awarded the CIRRELT, FQRSC, SSHRC, ISESCO, Dean's Research award (2015), Teaching Award (2016) and Service Award (2018) and President (Vice Chancellor's) Research Award 2019.

Muhammad Khalilur Rahman

Muhammad Khalilur Rahman currently works at Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK). He did his PhD in Marketing from University of Malaya, Malaysia. He has a wide interest in service management research, which includes supply chain management, operation management, tourism management, environmental management, marketing, service quality, brand equity, entrepreneurship, and green consumption behaviors.

Dewan Mehrab Ashrafi

Dewan Mehrab Ashrafi is a senior lecturer at ULAB School of Business, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. Previously he worked at School of Business Administration, East Delta University as an assistant Professor. He did Master's in International Management and Consumer Psychology from Rhine-Waal University, Germany. His research areas are consumer behaviour, business management, service management, digital marketing and others.