All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Growing grapes and making wine is certainly an art… but when you look into it there’s a lot of process involved. As I wrote about a bit last week, my wife and I recently spent two days in Sonoma County…
It’s been just over five years since the first edition of my book Lean Hospitals was released and just over a year since Healthcare Kaizen was released. Joe Swartz and I are happy to say that The Executive Guide to…
I’ve recently been reading an enjoyable book by Peter Sims, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries. The practice of Kaizen, of course, brings lots of small improvements. But, it’s often surprising how breakthrough ideas with a really…
My wife and I just got back from four days in Napa and Sonoma counties doing, ahem, “gemba walks” at a number of wineries, both large and small. As tourists, we like doing winery visits where you get to walk…
Hat tip to Tony Manos of 5S Supply for sharing (via twitter) this interesting table that shows how a few minutes (or even a few seconds) can really add up across a period of five years. My friend Paul Akers…
Last Wednesday, Dr. Greg Jacobson and I gave a webinar for Gemba Academy titled Leadership Behaviors that Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement. You can view the recording via GembaAcademy.com. Greg and I came up with a list of 25…
You might recall that I interviewed Dr. Joe Guarisco for episode #160 of my podcast series, talking about operations improvement and emergency department patient flow. I was invited by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) to interview Dr. Guarisco…
In hospitals, there’s a big emphasis on healthcare professionals always checking TWO patient identifiers to help avoid getting the wrong patient. You might have two patients with the same name, so you should also check the birth date (since it’s…
When the book Lean Thinking (by Jim Womack and Dan Jones) was originally published in 1996, it seems likely that hardly anyone was applying Lean principles in healthcare. Sure, you had organizations applying TQM or CQI principles (or even some of the lessons of Dr. W. Edwards Deming). Joan Wellman did some of her first Lean healthcare experiments in 1995, but there weren't any "Lean healthcare" case studies yet. What does their book say?
Listen It’s great to have Dr. John Toussaint back for episode #184 of the podcast (see links to previous episodes below). He is, of course, CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value and the author of two Shingo Award-winning…
ThedaCare, a health system in Wisconsin, is well known for their Lean improvement system and Lean management system (“business performance system“) in their hospitals, including their innovative “collaborative care” model. Amednews.com recently wrote about ThedaCare’s innovations in primary care delivery…
I’m going to be participating in two webinars this week (including one that is also a live presentation in Austin). Tuesday August 13: HIMSS Meeting in Austin (and Webinar) Dr. Greg Jacobson (from KaiNexus) and I will be giving a…
