Lean Healthcare Article in Harvard Business Review

Fixing Healthcare From The Inside, Today

Available through HBS… this is written by Steven J. Spear, a former Harvard professor who has written about Toyota quite a bit.

He has since left and joined the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, focusing on lean in healthcare.

The focus of this article is much like his Toyota writings — it focuses on the problem solving and continuous improvement aspects of the Toyota Production System culture, one of the key points being that all work needs to be designed/improved so that steps are “unambiguous”, helping to prevent mistakes caused by wrong expectations of who is doing what in a chaotic situation.

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Mark Graban

Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker who has worked in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. His latest book is Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More. He is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, as well as The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. He also published the anthology Practicing Lean that benefits the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation, where Mark is a board member. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.

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