Track: Graduate Student Paper Competition

Abstract

Continuous improvement projects (CIPs), such as Kaizen events, Six Sigma projects, Lean Six Sigma projects, and quality improvement projects have been used to improve processes and system performance in organizations.  Although CIPs have an important role in continuous improvement initiatives or programs, it is unclear what the main topics are that are addressed in research on CIPs in hospitals.  Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify the main research topics addressed, research methods used, and analysis tools applied in scholarly published work on CIPs in hospitals.  The researchers conducted a systematic literature review and identified 302 publications (journals, conference proceedings, and dissertations/theses).  Bibliometric analysis on research design characteristics was conducted, identifying a high concentration of publications focused on describing CIP implementation using case studies as research methods.  These findings suggest that CIPs in hospitals is an emerging research field with opportunities to conduct empirical investigations, increasing the knowledge available for practitioners to improve processes and systems in hospitals.