Seattle Children's Hospital's long-term goal was to double in size by adding more than 1 million square feet to the campus, but by working through a Lean process, or continuous process improvement (CPI), a planned and designed emergency department expansion was canceled because the hospital realized its overcrowding problems weren’t about volume but about inefficient space utilization. According to an article in Healthcare Design, this type of planning and examination continued until the hospital ended up with less square footage — but with a facility that perfectly fit their needs.
Read the article.