Abstract
As more and more healthcare service providers realize the imperative of improving quality and eliminating waste, lean healthcare is increasingly becoming a strong initiative. Though the concepts of lean have been frequently presented and advocated, the current state of adoption in Southern African countries faces challenges. There still exist a number of different perspectives as to what lean is fundamentally capable of in the healthcare setting. In this paper, we present an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with the application of the lean philosophy in healthcare. We collate expert views from a number of leading consultants, practitioners and academics from the Southern African region. The leading expert participants were selected based on their good knowledge and expertise in the field of lean. The study provides a useful resource for many researchers and practitioners concerned with research and application of improvement methodologies in healthcare to transform their healthcare organizations into high-performing healthcare delivery systems.