Toyota’s Factory Medical Center

Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » In-house Health Clinics

Tip of the hat to John for finding this article about companies bringing some doctor clinic functions in-house (or at least on site) as a way of reducing medical expenses.

The article highlights Toyota’s medical center at their new TMMTX plant in San Antonio:

The biggest primary care clinic so far opened Jan. 2 in Texas, when Toyota workers and their

families started using a $9 million, 20,000-square-foot medical center alongside a new truck assembly plant in San Antonio. Unlike most of the new medical offices — which are staffed by nurse practitioners and in some cases a part-time doctor — Toyota’s San Antonio health center has two-full time doctors, a part-time physician, a blood-test lab and an X-ray center.

I learned last year that Toyota runs a hospital in Toyota City, Japan and that they were finally just starting to apply lean principles. I wonder if this new site in San Antonio incorporates lean methods, particularly in their lab design and operations? A lot of the work I do is in apply lean methods to hospital labs. It would be interesting to see how Toyota is doing it.

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.