Charles McMillan

Abstract

Japan’s healthcare system has received limited attention from policymakers and researchers who tend to look to the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand for ideas and policy prescriptions. The paper argues that Japan should be added to this list. Reaching beyond the system level and examine hospital management, and the implications of the systems for delivery, can lead to international management learning analogous to that that occurred as Japanese practices such as kaizen and kanban (just-in-time) delivery systems that were a