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.
