All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Joining me today for Episode #287 is another returning guest (see Episode #198), Harry Kenworthy. We're talking about his book, which will be released on Friday, Lean Government NOW! : Increase Service, Capacity and Employee Engagement While Reducing Costs and Wastes.
As Eric wrote about in The Lean Startup (and as many others say), time is the most precious commodity anybody has. I think that's true in startups and it's true in other organizations. Everybody says they don't have enough time. So, we have to use it wisely.
My guest for Episode #286 is Dean Gruner, MD, the recently retired CEO of ThedaCare, a health system in Wisconsin that has long been considered a worldwide leader in the practice of Lean in healthcare. See this article about his retirement, where he says "I've gotten more than I've given."
Dean was previously my guest in Episodes 119 and 144 and I'm thrilled that he took time out of his retirement to talk with me about his lessons learned as he looks back on how ThedaCare's Lean journey has evolved, including some things he would consider to be missteps and challenges that they used as a springboard to get even better.
I will also be releasing a separate episode where Dean talks about their experiences with Accountable Care Organizations (our topic from #144) and other "big picture" healthcare issues of the day.
I'm including a full transcript along with a three-page PDF summary, as I've been doing recently.
Don’t forget – you can enter for a chance to win a paperback version of the book through midnight tonight. I’m excited to announce that the audiobook version of our book Practicing Lean is complete! It’s available for purchase via LeanPub.com…
Let's start by stating the obvious: it sucks to wait 24 hours or more on a stretcher in an emergency department hallway waiting for a real hospital bed. It's sad and frustrating to have a couple of blog readers from Canada send me this story from Quebec:
Quebec wants 24-hour cap for patients waiting on stretchers in ERs
Barrette says there would be consequences for hospital staff, doctors who don't comply
I think there's agreement that waiting 24 hours, 12 hours, or four hours for a bed after an admission is a problem. That's a problem worth working on.
Hear Mark read the post (subscribe to the podcast): This is an elaboration on something I originally posted on LinkedIn. I saw somebody touting an approach that would guarantee “maximum efficiency for your management gemba walks.” Ah, the efficiency trap. Is…
One challenge with teaching Lean is that there isn’t aways a consistent definition that’s used by everybody. Some of the definitions are really bad. Some of them are just different from others. Let’s start with “different.” Is a lack of…
I really enjoyed and appreciated this new white paper that was written by Dr. Lisa Yerian and Nate Hurle from The Cleveland Clinic: “No More Projects: Kick-starting a continuous-improvement culture in healthcare“ The paper was published by Catalysis and is available…
Any rare event creates a number of challenges when it comes to manufacturing and supply chains. We're seeing a pretty historic "spike" in demand for products like the inexpensive glasses that allow one to safety view the eclipse (our friends in the totality zone can look at the totally-eclipsed sun safely, but that's the only time).
You could call it "supply chain challenges" or a "lack of planning on my part," but I cannot find eclipse glasses anywhere. There are MANY articles online about this widespread problem -- it's been impossible to buy "eclipse glasses" anywhere. Why is this? What could have been done?
I'm excited to be playing host for a KaiNexus webinar on August 30 on a topic that's very important to me (and to many) -- patient safety.
As I mentioned yesterday on LinkedIn, estimates suggest that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, with approximately 250,000 deaths a year... and that's four times as many deaths as caused by the opioid crisis.
Don't get me wrong, opioid abuse and what happens to patients who end up addicted is horrible. But the newly-named "national emergency" of opioid abuse gets far more attention than what I would call "the international patient safety emergency" that has been around for a long time.
I try bringing attention to the serious, yet solvable, problem of patient harm caused by preventable medical error. That's why I'm happy that we'll have three presenters on the 30th on this topic:
"Teaming with Patients to Improve Safety"
Click here to register - the webinar is free.
I’ve read most of retired General Stanley McChrystal’s excellent book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (I start a lot of books and finish a few). Amazon reminds me that I bought the book just over…
Today at 3 PM, I'm doing a webinar at the invitation of the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council, as part of their "Quality Café" series. Thanks for the invitation!
It's open to the public and it's titled:
"Standardize What Makes Sense... Then Engage Everybody in Improving What You Standardized"
I hope you can join us...
