The present study focuses on the healthcare sector, aiming to assess the impact of Lean Service 5.0 (LS5.0) and digital transformation (DT) on reducing patient length of stay (LoS) in the hospital discharge process.
This study adopted a systematic literature review (SLR) that identified digital tools and solutions which can help shorten patients’ hospital stays, including artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), appointment scheduling systems, remote monitoring and telemedicine.
The findings identified digital tools and solutions that, when implemented in the healthcare sector, contribute to reducing waiting times and length of stay, minimising errors and readmissions and enhancing patient safety and satisfaction. By integrating LS5.0 technologies into healthcare, these advancements can support hospital managers in decision-making by providing strategic guidance on operations management. These tools serve as valuable resources for managing a high-demand sector with limited capacity. The results indicate that DT reduces patient wait time, LoS, readmission rates and medical errors. Thus, they improve patient satisfaction and safety.
The results of this research help to spread knowledge about the impact of using LS5.0 with DT to improve the patient flow in a healthcare environment and provide guidance on this process implementation. Therefore, the adoption of LS5.0 in the healthcare sector represents a valuable opportunity for hospitals to improve service delivery and patient outcomes. Therefore, this research is the first to provide this kind of synthesis to identify the effects of LS5.0 and DT in the patient flow.
