As described on the YouTube page for this video, a group of Salem Hospital (Oregon) staff members (senior leaders, front-line staff, clinicians) visited Japan in 2011 to study Lean and Kaizen (continuous improvement): “Salem Hospital leaders reflect on strategic trip to Japan.”

As the CEO Norm Gruber says at the beginning was “an experiment” but they concluded afterward it was “clearly it was worth going.” During the trip, “[job] titles disappeared completely,” says Gruber. COO Cheryl Nester Wolfe commented, “a patient is not a car – absolutely not – but the work that people do to make that product (or that patient) better are very similar. Ours is about how do we take exceptional care of our patients every single time.”

The video:

Click to read the full post and read/add comments —>

About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “lean healthcare” methodology, focused on improving quality and patient safety, improving access, reducing costs, and fully engaging healthcare professionals. He is also the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus.