All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
A few weeks back, I posted the first new video from my Healthcare Kaizen co-author‘s health system: “Endoscopy Nurses are “Kaizen Crazy” at Franciscan St. Francis Health!” Today’s post includes the second video and, as I add new ones, you can…
I’ll be blogging a lot more about my recent trip to Japan with Kaizen Institute, including the site visits and our lessons learned. I had a few days of tourist / vacation time in Tokyo before and after the trip,…
On Friday, LinkedIn published a piece I wrote for their series of articles on the theme of “The Road Not Taken.” LinkedIn asked people to write about the “Plan B” that they may have wished they had pursued. This was difficult…
Four years ago, I parodied the style of GEICO commercial that they were running at the time with a “did you know that Steve Martin’s character from The Jerk was bad at 5S?” The other day, I was thinking about…
TL;DR: Quality Circles are still thriving in Japanese hospitals and companies–rooted in the philosophy of developing people through structured problem solving. What some in the West now call “A3 Thinking” or “PDSA” is alive and well in Japan as a…
Mark’s note: Today’s guest post is by Brian Buck, a fellow lean healthcare practitioner who blogged until about two years ago at his site “Improve With Me.” Recently, I took my son to his primary care provider and the doctor…
TL;DR: A Toyota tour guide at the Tsutsumi plant once added a small hook to a catwalk railing because she didn’t like setting her bag down. Her manager approved it. A colleague installed it. No ROI analysis was required. That…
Here’s the third cartoon collaboration with artist Carrie Schurman, CMA (AAMA), a workflow facilitator at a health system in Florida. See all of the cartoons here. More to come! This cartoon is not inspired by any particular incident or any real health…
Thanks to my friend (and future co-author) Mike Stoecklein for sharing this video (and a blog post) about his Healthcare Value Network visit to Scottsdale Lincoln Health Network (now called HonorHealth). The video shows many employees from many different departments at what…
I was thankful to find this CBC Radio news story / podcast from the program “White Coat Black Art,” hosted by Dr. Brian Goldman: The Toyota Way for Healthcare It’s just under 30 minutes long and I think it’s a…
Today, I’m traveling to Tokyo, but I’m still thinking of the amazing nurses and leaders at Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indiana. Through my co-author Joe Swartz, the director of business transformation, their work is featured heavily in our book Healthcare Kaizen.…
Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Japan and I’ll be with Kaizen Institute for our second Lean healthcare study tour (see a PDF about the trip). We have an incredibly diverse group, with attendees from the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia,…
