In healthcare, it’s a well-known problem that people often don’t speak up to point out risks or to report near misses. It’s an organizational culture problem… people are afraid of being blamed, punished, or retaliated against for speaking up. A…
I saw this story when it originally appeared online as part of a local public radio station in California. It was now picked up nationally by NPR and a number of you emailed me about this Lean healthcare piece about UCLA…
It’s time for another Throwback Thursday where I revisit a blog post from the past. To the left, that’s a baby Mark Graban… probably not actually thinking about Lean. I referenced this post in my recent Keith Olber-Lean parody video……
Today’s post is a throwback to an essay that I originally wrote for the excellent book Lean-Led Hospital Design: Creating the Efficient Hospital of the Future, where it appears in an appendix with some other contributed essays. You can listen to…
I was quoted in two articles that appeared in “Today’s Hospitalist”: Reducing Waste The author, David A. Frenz, MD, points out that it’s a “collective delusion” that the U.S. spending so much more on healthcare leads to safer or higher…
My guest for episode #220 is somebody I’ve wanted to interview for a long time, Dr. Robert Wachter, one of the leading voices in the modern patient safety movement. He’s most recently author of a brand-new book The Digital Doctor:…
I do my best to “practice what I preach” in terms of Lean and Kaizen principles and spirit. No, I don’t have tape outlines around the items on my home office desk (which would be, at best, a superficial copying…
Listen Today’s guest is my friend John Ervin and we were able to sit down together here in San Antonio to record this episode. John has about 20 years of healthcare leadership experience, including in military medicine and the civilian sector.…
It’s easy to point fingers at others who don’t do what they know they’re supposed to do. Why don’t those nurses and doctors properly clean their hands when they enter and leave every patient room? Why do some surgeons still…
David Mann explains why creating a Lean culture depends on leader behavior and management systems–not tools or compliance–and how leader standard work helps sustain improvement. He shares practical guidance for executives on using Gemba walks to learn, teach, and reinforce…
Mark’s note: Today’s post is by David Meier, a former Toyota group leader, and co-author of the excellent books The Toyota Way Fieldbook and Toyota Talent: Developing Your People the Toyota Way. He is currently working on a project to…
TL;DR: Not every question is actually a question. Some are directives, some are blame in disguise, and some are just declarative statements wearing a question mark. If you mean to say something directly, it’s usually more respectful to say it…
