There’s a great Taaichi Ohno quote that I was reminded of last week (see a previous post from 2010 on this). “Data is of course important in manufacturing, but I place the greatest emphasis on facts.” I was in northern…
I flew back safely from Finland on Saturday – or I should say British Airways and American Airlines flew me safety, including in the 747 pictured at left. 15 hours across three flights. It was a long day. But, I…
TL;DR: W. Edwards Deming and Toyota each landed on 14 core principles, independently. They overlap most around long-term thinking, leadership responsibility, respect for people, and continuous improvement. The shared lesson holds in 2026: real improvement comes from disciplined, connected management…
Many of you who took my reader survey (still open and feedback welcome, prizes gone) mentioned that you liked this style of post with links to stuff I’ve been reading. I am to please… Some links to web articles I…
Hat tip to one of my favorite blogs, Uni-Watch.com, for pointing this out. In Sunday’s Texans / Patriots game, somebody on the Texans sideline apparently removed the red “challenge” flag from the back pocket of head coach Gary Kubiak. This…
Last week, my wife was watching ABC’s show “Grey’s Anatomy,” as she always does. Again, as she often does, she’ll pause it for me when there’s a scene related to patient safety, so I can watch. In this scene, below,…
I’ve always been intrigued by entrepreneur (and billionaire) Elon Musk. He founded PayPal (which I have used for over ten years), founded SpaceX (which I would love to use, but can’t afford), and is the CEO of Tesla (not really…
Karen Wolk Feinstein, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, channeled the Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment “Really!?!” in this recent op-ed titled: “Don’t put this on patients: Sick people are supposed to monitor medical errors? Really??“…
Here’s an interesting story from this week: “Google early earnings release stuns traders.” Reportedly, the Google financial report for Wall Street was mistakenly released EARLY. Instead of releasing after the close of trading, it was sent out by R.R. Donnelly,…
Preventable medical mistakes remain one of the most serious challenges in healthcare, yet many hospitals still struggle with learning from medical errors and preventing them from happening again. From emergency departments to pathology labs, the same types of errors continue…
Most of us think of Kaizen as a workplace method. Robert Maurer applies it to therapy, health, and relationships — and the brain science he describes explains a lot about why change efforts fail at work, too. We talk about…
Last weekend, I watched a show on the Smithsonian Channel that was an interesting contrast to the CNN show I blogged about yesterday (“A Lean Guy Watches “CNN’s 25 Shocking Medical Mistakes“). The Smithsonian show was about aviation safety: “AIR…