Monthly Archives: October 2017

The other day, I posted Episode #289 of the podcast, in which Kathleen Sharp and David Schoenwetter made some great points about respecting "push back"...

I'm teaching a daylong class on Lean healthcare today in San Antonio. It's something I've done twice a year for the past four years...

My guests for Episode #289 are Kathleen Sharp, MBOE, LSS MBB, now the Director of Optimization at McLeod Health, and David Schoenwetter, D.O., FACEP, a Medical Director at Geisinger Health System. They are joining me to talk about the innovative Geisinger Mobile Health Paramedic program that they developed and piloted with Lean thinking throughout. Kathleen and David will discuss why it was important to engage stakeholders in innovation, how they viewed and addressed resistance to change, why it was important to test the idea in practice, and why it was important to measure results. They also discuss their lessons learned and their challenges along the way. This WSJ article has a nice summary of the program: "Paramedics Aren't Just for Emergencies." "In the Geisinger pilot program, mobile health visits can be requested by a patient's primary-care doctor, a cardiology clinic, or after an emergency room or hospital discharge. Patients who frequently visit the ER are offered the option of being seen at home by a paramedic as an alternative to an ER visit and potential hospital admission, especially for conditions that can be treated at home if caught early." I hope you enjoy the episode. It's long, but it's an interesting case study, I believe.

Thanks to those of you who sent me this HBR article: Doctors Feel Excluded from Health Care Value Efforts Long story short... brought to you by...

In the past year or two, it seems like I have heard more about people and organizations leading Lean study trips to Japan. This...

I'm not looking for a traditional, full-time job, but a lot of job postings cross my path, as people are looking for referrals. A...

I've blogged about football before - I should say "American football," since I have many international readers. I should say I've blogged about events on the football field and the approaches of football coaches that remind me of Lean thinking. Here are a few of those thoughts from last weekend -- topics include "lack of urgency," "that's not my job," and "the process."

When I was recently considering switching from an iPhone 6S to a newer iPhone 8 Plus (or an iPhone X), I wrote this post...

it's great to see an 11 year old thinking like an engineer and an entrepreneur. He's the son of a Toyota "operational excellence" consultant. For those who try to unfortunately equate Lean to a "clean desk policy," the father's desk is a great argument against banning family photos and an illustration of why Lean isn't about putting tape around everything...

The Lean Enterprise Institute (a former employer of mine from 2009 to 2011) has announced a new CEO, the third in their history following founder James P. Womack and his successor, John Shook. Their press release: Lean Enterprise Institute Names Eric Buehrens New CEO The start of the release: "The nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute, a global leader in lean thinking and practice, today announced the appointment of Eric Buehrens as its new CEO. The appointment took effect October 1, 2017. A proven lean thinker and leader, Buehrens led lean transformations at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he served as COO and Interim CEO, and at Reliant Medical Group, a Massachusetts group medical practice, where he was COO."