Tag: Healthcare
How Often Does This Get Repeated? CMS and the Underpants Gnomes
I've recently heard of a scenario in healthcare that I suspect is pretty common, or at least it's not the first time I've heard...
Brilliant 1981 Article: “Why Japanese factories work” – Relevant for Healthcare...
The year is 1981. A Major League Baseball strike interrupts the season. We're in the midst of the Cold War. President Reagan is shot....
What I’m Reading 8/29/13: Forcing Happiness, Saving $$ By Not Using...
As we move into the Labor Day weekend, I need to close some browser tabs that are full of things that I was maybe...
Gemba Wine: A Lean Geek Visits Wineries, Part 3
Following up on my previous posts (here and here) on a recent visit to the Northern California Wine Country, I'm going to share a...
Kaizen Contest – Win a Copy of “The Executive Guide to...
One feature of the website for our Healthcare Kaizen books has been the ability for people to share an example of a Kaizen improvement...
Dr. Gary Kaplan’s Introduction to “The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen”
It's been just over five years since the first edition of my book Lean Hospitals was released and just over a year since Healthcare...
What I’m Reading: “Little Bets”
I've recently been reading an enjoyable book by Peter Sims, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries.
The practice of Kaizen, of course,...
25 Key Leader Behaviors that Encourage Continuous Improvement
Last Wednesday, Dr. Greg Jacobson and I gave a webinar for Gemba Academy titled Leadership Behaviors that Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement.
You can...
Interviewing Dr. Guarisco on Improving E.D. Patient Flow
You might recall that I interviewed Dr. Joe Guarisco for episode #160 of my podcast series, talking about operations improvement and emergency department patient...
Video: Influencing Hand Hygiene Behaviors
A friend shared this fun video about how to influence hand washing behavior amongst a group of 12 kids. As the introduction points out,...
ALWAYS Check Two Identifiers – In a Hospital or a Casino
In hospitals, there's a big emphasis on healthcare professionals always checking TWO patient identifiers to help avoid getting the wrong patient. You might have...
What the Book “Lean Thinking” Said About Healthcare in 1996
When the book Lean Thinking (by Jim Womack and Dan Jones) was originally published in 1996, it seems likely that hardly anyone was applying Lean principles in healthcare. Sure, you had organizations applying TQM or CQI principles (or even some of the lessons of Dr. W. Edwards Deming). Joan Wellman did some of her first Lean healthcare experiments in 1995, but there weren't any "Lean healthcare" case studies yet. What does their book say?
