Lean healthcare assets challenge FM performance measurement conventions

Purpose; To show how Lean Asset thinking can be applied to health care facilities using different measures to compare the estates contribution to the business of health care providers. The challenge to conventional wisdom matches that posed by Lean Production to Mass Manufacturing.

Methodology; Data Envelope Analysis examines the income generated and patient occupied area as outputs from the Gross Area of a Trust’s estate.

Findings; The approach yield strategic comparisons that conventional FM measures of cost per m² hide. The annual cost of an excess estate is conservatively estimated at £600,000,000(in England alone)

Research limitations/implications; Further research to understand the causes of the excess is needed and is in hand. Meanwhile the research illustrates the power of an alternative way of assessing facilities performance.

Practical implications Have already been demonstrated in two trusts who have used such an analysis to define strategic estates targets,

Originality. The author’s are not aware of the Lean Asset perspective previously being applied to healthcare facilities. The research shows the underlying fallacy of relying on cost per m² as the primary measure of asset performance.