[Lean, work and psychological well-being.] / Lean, benessere lavorativo e psicologico.

SUMMARY: Many studies have confirmed the existence of a close relationship between job satisfaction and health. The Siena University Hospital introduced the Lean approach to support personnel development/empowerment and promote a constant improvement in work organization, with the aim of creating value for patients, professionals and the whole organization. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the introduction and the development of this improvement approach in healthcare could contribute to the enhancement of psychological wellbeing and employee satisfaction, with a positive value in preventing related stress work. The Lyne and Barrett Employee Wellbeing Questionnaire (EWQ) was administered to employees involved in selected Lean projects carried out at the Siena University Hospital. The EWQ is composed of 59 items and it is structured in three areas: organizational wellbeing, working satisfaction and workload. The analysis of the results showed significant evidence of the impact of improvement activities on the working satisfaction and the workload.

Management simulations for Lean healthcare: exploiting the potentials of role-playing.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potentials of role-playing (RP) both in training healthcare (HC) professionals to implement tools and improvement actions based on Lean principles, and in supporting group discussion and the sharing of different competencies for the development of Lean HC. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents the case study of an RP simulation called LEAN HEALTHCARE LAB, which is used to train HC professionals at Siena University Hospital. The paper reports and discusses the results of a specific two-day simulation session and of a questionnaire that was distributed to gather feedback from the participants. Findings The paper verifies the potentials of RP to be a powerful educational and training tool that is able to stimulate the HC participants to apply Lean thinking principles and share their competencies in collaborative decision-making processes. Research limitations/implications The study provides data in reference to one single simulation session, although the game has already been applied several times in different HC organizations with very similar outcomes. Moreover, a more in-depth analysis of players' perceptions and decisions could be performed using different tools in addition to the adopted questionnaire. Practical implications RP games (RPGs) are effective training and educational tools for HC professionals. They offer benefits and learning conditions which are definitely different if compared with more conventional education programs for HC professionals. Originality/value While previous studies have extensively discussed the potentialities of RPG and simulations in training programs, only a few articles have discussed the RP adoption for Lean thinking and even less to educate HC professionals on Lean principles and tools.