Take a look at this article in a hospital's newsletter about a "time and motion study" at a Purdue University hospital.  (You might have to scroll down until you see the article entitled, "A 36-hospital time and motion study")  Go ahead...I'll wait here.

It's not presented as a lean initiative but I'm interested in whether or not you think a study like this could be a good example of data gathering as part of a larger lean initiative.

On the one hand, I always get nervous when I read  or hear about "time and motion studies".  I worked at a hospital 20 years ago where they did time and motion studies on how long it took physical therapists to change patients' bandages. 

In the case of the article, I'd worry that the study was after the same sort of information, e.g., are nurses spending too much time with patients?  Can nurses treat more patients in less time if they work more efficiently? 

On the other hand, when we look at the data obtained, we can see that it's quite amenable to an agile approach.  If the hospital asks the question, "How can we increase the percentage of time spent on patient care by reducing non-patient care activities?", they'll be on the right track. 

What do you think?  Is this study a good example of lean/agile practice or not?  And, what would you do with these data?