ReviewHealthcare (Basel, Switzerland)2026
Lean Adoption in Healthcare: Between Promise and Practice.
Review in Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLean Management (LM) is recognized for its significant potential to improve efficiency and quality in healthcare. However, despite its promise, widespread and sustainable adoption across healthcare organizations remains paradoxically limited, with many initiatives failing to move beyond localized, short-term successes. This study examines the systemic barriers that hinder the long-term integration of LM in healthcare settings, to understand why a gap persists between its theoretical potential and practical reality.
methodsA systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. A search of Scopus, Emerald Insight, PubMed/MEDLINE databases and Google Scholar was performed to identify peer-reviewed articles published in English between 2015 and 2025. The review focused on studies addressing the adoption, implementation, or sustainability of LM in healthcare. Data on measurement frameworks, influencing factors, and reported barriers were extracted and synthesized to develop an explanatory model.
resultsThe synthesis of the ten included studies yields three thematic clusters, each documented in the reviewed evidence and, in this analysis, connected as mutually reinforcing loops: (1) the Measurement-Accountability Gap, (2) the Tools-Philosophy Disconnect, and (3) the Complexity-Resistance Cycle. The proposed connections among these clusters are elaborated in the Discussion.
conclusionsThe principal contribution is the synthesis of these previously reported barriers into an integrated conceptual model in which they are connected as mutually reinforcing mechanisms rather than treated as independent factors, offering healthcare leaders a structured perspective for interpreting the pattern of limited sustained adoption.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.