TL;DR: While some Japanese hospitals excel at Lean, many face the same cultural and systemic barriers seen elsewhere. Visiting Japan isn’t about finding a Lean utopia–it’s about sharpening your thinking by seeing what’s possible and how leadership, not geography, drives…
Just over a week ago, I got back from Katie Anderson’s Japan Study Trip. It was amazing! I have so much to write about and share. But first, Facebook reminded me of something from exactly ten years ago–the second time…
TL;DR: Two Japanese hospitals improved patient safety by combining Toyota-style problem-solving with psychological safety. By making it safe for staff to report problems and near misses, leaders uncovered more issues, learned faster, and reduced harm–turning safety into part of daily…
In the third and final part of this series, I share more about how Toyota teaches about TPS and TQM... and how they are sharing that approach with doctors and hospitals.
Last week, I wrote about the influence of Total Quality Management (TQM) on Toyota -- in the past and the present, in Japan and beyond. Today, to follow up on that, I'm going to share some excerpts from some material that was shared by a Toyota leader who presented at a hospital I visited earlier this year as part of the Kaizen Institute-organized Japan trip.
I'm overdue in writing more about my last trip to Japan a few months back.
Today, I'll like to share some highlights from one organization we visited, Seki Chuo Hospital, which is located outside of Nagoya. I have visited this hospital in 2012 and 2014 and it's interesting to see how their approach to Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, and Kaizen has progressed and evolved. I mentioned them in a 2014 post about "quality circles."
I wrote a new piece for LinkedIn that I hope would be of interest to you even if you’re in healthcare. Why? It’s a story about what an organization does when you don’t have enough (or any) direct work for your front-line staff to do. Toyota would continue paying employees and would put them to...
My two previous trips to Japan have been incredible experiences, both personally and professionally. I'm planning to go back in December with a tour group I'm helping organize with Kaizen Institute. When people go to Japan, I think they are expecting to see perfect Lean practices. But, no...
This tweet and photo made me chuckle the other day… If it’s “your right” or “your left” as you’re going up or down the stairs, collisions are going to happen if everybody followed these instructions: In Japan, during our…
In November 2012, I had the opportunity to visit Japan for the first time as part of a Lean healthcare study mission. It was fascinating to compare notes with colleagues from the U.S., Belgium, and Holland as we visited factories,…
I’ve been going back through my notes and pictures from my first trip to Japan in November… my goal is to blog about something or share a picture on a weekly basis. Read more about my guides, Kaizen Institute. We visited…
A hospital CEO who turned around a near-bankrupt organization over two decades credits one thing above all else: the steady accumulation of small improvements. Not a grand strategy. Not a consultancy-led transformation. Just the ongoing discipline of kaizen — and…
