Thanks to Healthcare Finance News for interviewing me for this piece they ran this week: “7 ways lean healthcare management reduces cost.”
As I think the piece conveys, cost reduction comes as a result mainly from methods that are different than traditional “cost cutting.” There are many alternatives to layoffs – the way that many hospitals are, unfortunately, trying to cut costs. I say “trying” because I've spoken to a few hospital CEOs who have given up on the cycles of layoffs, since their costs weren't really going down in the long run.
We should be working first on quality and safety improvements and doing things that allow us to reduce cost and increase capacity without resorting to layoffs. When hospital CEOs say they were “forced” to layoff people, we can ask “Really?”
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Love the article! I will be passing it on.
I’m glad that Lean is becoming known as a viable, and better, option than layoffs among medical institutions.
Thanks, Ari. I think it’s still a minority view, but word is spreading that, as you put it, Lean is a viable alternative. I’m working on a longer article that shares a lot of quotes from CEOs and other healthcare leaders who see it that way.
I look forward to seeing the longer article!