Today, I presented a webinar for Gemba Academy on waste in healthcare (a recording is available here). I won't be making slides available, but I have this notes document to share with citations, etc.
Some of my key points included:
- Of the “8 types of waste,” they are not created equally
- Defects leading to patient harm or death are the most important things to be working on
- The problem is not “bad apples,” but rather bad processes and bad management systems
- Better safety and quality leads to lower cost, as an end result
- We have an obligation to patients and staff to focus on the things that matter and not just get pulled into cost reduction efforts
If we're doing trivial Lean projects without addressing patient harm or patient waiting times, we run the risk of “5S-ing the deck chairs on the Titanic”:
We have to be really careful that we aren't doing this.
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