Continuous improvement projects in hospitals: A systematic literature review

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current research on Continuous Improvement Projects (CIPs) used by hospitals. A CIP is a systematic team-based short-term mechanism to eliminate waste or reduce variation in processes and systems in an organization without (or with minimal) capital investment. Some of the most important CIPs such as Quality Circles, Kaizen Events, Six Sigma projects, Lean Six Sigma, and Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) are being used by hospitals. Although there are various conceptual studies and literature reviews about each of these types of CIPs, there is benefit to comparing the literature for the various CIP types. Using a systematic literature review as a research methodology, the authors found that investigation of CIPs in healthcare is a frequently researched topic, with primary project types being PDCA and Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, and Kaizen Events. Most of the publications investigate the process of CIP implementation.