All Posts on Lean Blog

Here is an article that caught my eye recently, from HBR: "How One Health System Overcame Resistance to a Surgical Checklist" Seeing the word "resistance" always makes me wonder if the health system in the article was blaming…
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My wife recently had some work meetings in Louisville, Kentucky and she had a great idea... "Why don't you fly here on Thursday night instead of flying home?" That was an easy decision and we had an opportunity to do some, ahem, "gemba…
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Healthcare - Creating Value for Patients Imagine a healthcare system that responds to each patient's circumstances and preferences in real-time.  Real-time measurement of a patient's experience could be the holy grail of…
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David Reid Joining me for Episode #344 is David Reid, a mechanical engineer whose career has taken him from improvement work at Michelin Tire, to being a pastor, to now helping the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain improve through Lean and…
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Each time I teach my "Measures of Success" workshop for Catalysis at one of their events, they give me feedback scores from the attendees. I try to practice what I preach -- around reflection, the voice of the customer, continuous…
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Chris Burnham and Mark Graban Jamie Flinchbaugh and I had a great time with the first two episodes of "Lean Whiskey." Thanks to everyone who has subscribed, rated, and reviewed our podcast. Part of the original concept was to also…
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It's been a busy few weeks for me with work travel and, blogwise, I'm winding down into a few weeks of "blog vacation" (which coincides with some actual vacation travel). I did get a chance to see a Philadelphia Phillies game…
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Healthcare - Creating Value for Patients Many healthcare providers are driven by a deep commitment to the mission of healthcare. Some refer to it as a calling. The New York Times suggests that the healthcare…
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Speaking of mistakes, the cover image I selected for today's post reminds of traveling this past Monday. At DFW airport, a company was giving away samples of their new variety of gum. That might have been the gum (chewed by some…
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Hat tip to Stan Feingold from StoreSMART (a Lean Blog sponsor) for sending me this article: Bob Lutz Talks Panel Gaps, Tesla, and Why Every Detail Matters -- Getting it right starts at the top. Bob Lutz is a legend in the auto…
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As somebody who grew up as a big baseball fan, I somehow managed to not see the Ken Burns documentary, Baseball. I've been watching it recently through Amazon Prime Video. amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "markgraban"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode =…
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Last week was the 10th annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit. I've had the opportunity to take part in all ten of them, going back to my days as an employee of the Lean Enterprise Institute, who used to partner with Catalysis on the…
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In reviewing the excellent "Making Data Count" publication from NHS Improvement, I noticed some articles that they reference. One, in particular, caught my attention (and not just because it's free): "The problem with red, amber,…
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I really enjoyed the HBO miniseries "Chernobyl" that aired/streamed recently. You can watch it all now through HBO if you have access (or you can get an HBO free trial through Amazon). One of my favorite and most meaningful quotes from…
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Healthcare - Creating Value for Patients Healthcare innovation is prone to continuous pilots of improvements that are already proven and a half-hearted embrace of meaningful change. Sachin Jain, CEO of…
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When we have really sticky, complicated problems (like the widespread healthcare patient safety and quality problems), I think it's interesting to think through what's happening in terms of: It can't be solved (in general)That…
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