The mnemonic CUT DOWNTIME, which I have adapted and modified from the book Lean Healthcare Deployment and Sustainability,1 breaks down waste in health care—an activity that adds no value to a service—into 11 major categories (Table). This mnemonic provides the busy practitioner a simple framework for improving quality and efficiency of services by identifying and eliminating wastes the Lean way.
Disclosure
The author reports no financial relationships with any company whose products are mentioned in this article or with manufacturers of competing products.