I apologize to those of you who aren’t fans of American football… but in keeping with the Super Bowl theme, I found this Vince Lombardi quote on my hotel key when I checked into a hotel (in Seattle, not Green…
Today is a federal holiday in the United States, Labor Day. I know that’s obvious to the 70% of you reading from the U.S., but it seemed worth pointing out to the international readers. Labor Day became a holiday in…
Many of you may know of Paul O’Neill for the dramatic employee safety improvements at aluminum maker Alcoa and you may know of him from his work in promoting healthcare improvement (he is the “bureaucrat” in “The Nun & the…
Below is a guest post from fellow author and Lean Healthcare practitioner, Naida Grunden. Her book, The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare: Improving Patient Care Using Toyota Based Methods, is an outstanding collection of principles and case examples from the…
Checking In With Denver Health CEO Patricia Gabow On A “Model” Health Care System – Kaiser Health News Dr. Patty Gabow has been one of the leading CEO voices talking about Lean in Healthcare, as shown in the article linked…
This might seem like a post about football… but stick with me even if you’re not a sports fan. Many of you regular readers know I’m a Northwestern Wildcats football fanatic, from my days as an undergraduate. I was there…
Op-Ed Contributor – Health Care’s Infectious Losses – NYTimes.com FINALLY, a major contribution to the discussion about how we need to improve the quality of care delivery. That’s how we are truly going to bring costs down – by improving…
I blogged recently about a radio ad from the Detroit Medical Center trumpeting their technology and patient safety efforts. In my further travels, I saw this billboard (from a hospital that’s a competitor of a client… and no, I won’t…
Steve Spear spent six months embedded with a Toyota team as a doctoral student, learning the Toyota Production System by teaching it to a supplier in Kentucky. In this episode, he explains what he calls “high velocity” organizations — companies…
Healthcare Intelligence Network » Blog Archive » Eight Steps to a Culture of Safety I think words matter. Action matters, also, but the words we use do matter (not that I always choose them well here). Hospitals often use different…
Mattel is the latest victim in the “poison products from China” series (the “poison train,” as The Consumerist blog calls it). Victim is absolutely the wrong word to use, considering Mattel chose to source from China and admitted their own…
Today’s Detroit News wrote about lean in healthcare, this time in their own beloved University of Michigan system. Titled “U-M Hospital Takes Page from Toyota,” it starts out with a flaw, stating: “U-M is one of the first medical centers…
