Synergies in streamlining: AI and Lean Management in Polish healthcare administration

Administrative tasks consume 15–30% of healthcare budgets, and applying artificial intelligence (AI) tools within Lean Management (LM) is theorized to yield substantial efficiency gains, yet professional perceptions of this integration remain largely unexamined. In this exploratory cross-sectional survey of 330 Polish healthcare professionals across five role groups (April–September 2025), we introduce the AI-Lean Synergy Index, an exploratory formative composite measure of perceived AI-LM synergy pending confirmatory validation, derived from a 39-item instrument grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (average Cronbach’s α = 0.844). The Index yielded a median of 0.60 (interquartile range 0.30), with 88.9% of respondents ( n = 244) perceiving moderate to very high synergy. A 41.8-percentage-point perception–application gap separated belief that AI can improve healthcare quality (69.1%) from conscious application of AI to administrative efficiency (27.3%), while perceived implementation barriers were uniformly high (median 4.0/5.0 across 11 categories). Healthcare managers scored significantly higher than physicians (median 0.60 vs. 0.50; Kruskal-Wallis p = 0.045, post-hoc p = 0.0304), a difference consistent with a champion–skeptic dynamic and, alternatively, with role-specific referents for administrative efficiency. We propose an evidence-informed priority framework: governance, competency development, pilot projects, and change management for translating perceived synergy into administrative practice in centrally financed health systems.