More Lean Healthcare

The News-Gazette.com:Christie campaign has its seed in Toyota production system

Here's another link to a story about Lean progress in a hospital, this time in Champaign, Illinois.

It's especially good they are looking at reducing patient waiting times, MRI, CT scanning, lab results, etc using Lean and Six Sigma. There's a wide range of improvements, check out the article link for the details. I wonder what quality they are also making on the quality and patient safety front?

They are also involving patients in the improvement process by getting their input. I'd suggest that there are better methods other than patient comment cards -- they have the same dysfunction as employee suggestion boxes, in that you can't have discussion with the person to dig into the root of the particular problem or suggestion.

On another healthcare front, I'm working on a post about the recent news that the federal government (Medicare and Medicaid) plans on not paying for treatment related to "preventable medical errors." There are many dynamics involved, so I'm trying to put together a comprehensive post, but it's been a busy week.