Thanks to everybody for reading Lean Blog this year! As Christmas approaches, I’m taking off this week and probably next to enjoy time with family and some downtime. I hope you’ve had a successful year and I wish you nothing but the best for 2016...
In this episode, Dr. John Toussaint explains why Lean healthcare transformation fails when it’s treated as a set of tools instead of a leadership responsibility. Drawing on his experience as former CEO of ThedaCare, he discusses CEO accountability, patient safety,…
As I've worked with hospital and healthcare people over the past ten years, one personal benefit to me has been exposure to new ideas and new influences. I've been exposed to ideas from the social sciences, ideas that have been thought provoking and helpful...
A few months back, I announced a new collaborative eBook project called Practicing Lean... Chapter 4 in the book was contributed by Michael Lombard, a previous contributor to this blog. This past week, I also added a chapter contributed by Paul Akers, author of the books 2 Second Lean and Lean Health...
For the Lean minded individual, Spike’s “Bar Rescue” is so much more than just a television show. It is basically a weekly, or binge-watched, case study on process improvement in bars across the country. “Bar Rescue” is another example of how any industry can benefit from continuous improvement.
Today, I'm announcing a new podcast series called the Toyota Kata Podcast, or "KataCast" for short. As the Toyota Kata book and methodology have become more popular, I've been surprised that I haven't been asked "why don't you blog more about Toyota Kata?" [...]
In this 2015 conversation, John Dyer reflects on his career at General Electric — including attending Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s four-day seminar and a smaller follow-on course — and what happened when he took Deming’s 14 Points back to GE…
As I mentioned on Monday, I’m working on a 3rd revised edition of my book Lean Hospitals. Traditional book publishing is a funny (and sometimes frustrating) value stream, in a lot of ways. There are many batches and many queues along…
I’m proud of the work that the team at KaiNexus has done in the four years that I’ve been involved with the company in some way. We’re gaining momentum and adding new customers in different industries, bringing us to about…
My guests for episode #226 are Steve Hoeft and Dr. Robert (Bob) Pryor from Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas. Bob serves as President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer for the system and was formerly CEO of Scott &…
John Toussaint explains why Lean healthcare transformation succeeds only when leaders change how they lead–not just what tools they use. Joining me once again on the podcast today is John Toussaint, MD, the founder and CEO of the ThedaCare Center…
I’m back from two weeks of vacation and I’m going to ease back into social media and the blog, which includes a free webinar tomorrow (see below). I hope you had a great two weeks. During my vacation, I had…