Episode #76 is a discussion with Dr. David Jaques, VP of Surgical Services at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO.

Dr. Jaques is a skilled surgical oncologist and surgery department administrator. He came to Barnes-Jewish after serving as vice chairman of the department of surgery and director of graduate education at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He received his medical degree at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, which was followed by a distinguished career in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He served as a combat surgeon in the Persian Gulf War and was later chief of surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as an oncologist. He served as the senior medical officer during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Honors during Dr. Jaques’ time in the U.S. Army Medical Corps include the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal.

In this podcast, Dr. Jaques talks about how he has led Lean efforts that involve physicians in a unique “6/3″ format that helps solve tightly-scoped problems without the need to have surgeons and clinicians for a full 4-day kaizen event. We discuss how he got started with Lean, improvements that were made in the “Mass Transfusion Protocol,” and their broader Lean and physician engagement efforts. Really fascinating and innovative stuff. I hope you’ll take a listen.

“A 6/3 event is a two-day event developed at Barnes-Jewish (six hours the first day, three the second) in which the scope of the project is very narrow or specific and the problem clearly defined. The team is prepared to determine the solution during the six hours and has at least one day in between the two work days to try and verify their solution. The last three hours is spent analyzing and finalizing the outcome of their solution.”

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If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the “Lean Line” at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id “mgraban”. Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.

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.

Tagged as: Barnes Jewish, Doctor, Healthcare, Kaizen