All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
This is the first Lean article or case study I recall seeing about a German hospital: “JACR: Lean Six Sigma increases MRI productivity.” The article clearly articulates the benefits for patients, staff, and the hospital – University Hospital Giessen and…
It’s been nice to see the “lean design” approach taking hold in healthcare over the past few years. I think the first book on the subject was a “manifesto” by an architect, David Chambers: Efficient Healthcare – Overcoming Broken Paradigms.…
Thanks to Jamie Flinchbaugh for sending this funny video my way. It’s the comedian Louis C.K. in his show “Louie” (or maybe it’s from the earlier “Lucky Louie“). It’s a clip where, after an initial question, his young daughter does…
As I did on Wednesday, I’m posting a quote that we collected for our upcoming book “Healthcare Kaizen,” but this time it’s a quote from Seth Godin that we couldn’t really work into the text (or haven’t done so yet).…
Update: I edited the post title to add “Or Does He?” See the CEO’s comment below, suggesting that the TV report gave the wrong impression and that he wasn’t really “undercover” in a sneaky way like the CBS TV show.…
As I’m working hard this week to finish, with my co-author Joe Swartz, the manuscript for our upcoming book “Healthcare Kaizen,” I’m not taking much time to blog. But here is the longer version of a quote we are sharing…
Congrats to Eric Ries as his book The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses officially goes on sale today. I will post a formal review once I have read the entire book (disclosure:…
The long history of Industrial Engineers helping in healthcare goes back 100 years to one of the “fathers of Industrial Engineering,” Frank Gilbreth — and his wife, Lillian! It was Gilbreth who noticed that surgeons spent more time searching for…
A guest post from Steven J. Spear on this solemn day. You can also read it here. Friends, Ten years ago, I watched on television as a plane- stolen from the city in which I live-slammed into buildings in the…
Unfortunately, healthcare professionals often aren’t given the tools they need to do their jobs properly. People are forced into workarounds and corner cutting, or they are forced into wasting time by running around to find equipment — or working equipment.…
tl;dr: When a leader yells, people learn fear–not lessons. True coaching means helping others learn from mistakes instead of punishing them. Whether on the football field or in the workplace, the best leaders build confidence, not compliance. I was happy…
Thanks to Andrew Bishop for posting a link to this article the other day. The New York Times had an article on Sunday titled, “Do Happier People Work Harder?” I think the answer, clearly, is yes. The outlook from a…
