TL;DR: Dr. John Toussaint says healthcare culture won’t change until leaders do–moving from “white coat leadership” (all-knowing, autocratic, blaming) to Lean leadership as facilitator, teacher, and student who learns improvement by doing it. Mark’s note (2026): I originally shared this…
Joining me for the ninth time on the podcast, for Episode #381, is Dr. John Toussaint, chairman of Catalysis. John is author or co-author of three books — well actually it’s four books, as a new one is available for…
How big is the opportunity for improvement in healthcare? As Dr. Toussaint’s hand gesture, above, indicates… it’s a huge opportunity. There’s a huge need. What’s the best way to improve during increasingly challenging and uncertain times? Engage everybody in improving…
Today’s the first day of the two-day Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, an annual event that’s being held this year near Miami. If you’re at the Summit, please find me to say hello. You can follow the event on Twitter using…
Regular readers will remember my post about the New England Journal of Medicine piece on Lean by Pamela Hartzband, M.D., and Jerome Groopman, M.D. that so badly confused Lean with top-down Taylorism. John Toussaint, M.D., the former CEO of ThedaCare…
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,…
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…
At this year’s Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit (see my summary here) Dr. John Toussaint talked about and introduced his newly released book Management on the Mend, a follow up to 2010’s On the Mend. Summit attendees received a copy of the book, so they’re…
Listen It’s great to have Dr. John Toussaint back for episode #184 of the podcast (see links to previous episodes below). He is, of course, CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value and the author of two Shingo Award-winning…
Things are underway at the 2013 Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit. We have 600 attendees from 39 states and 8 countries. I will be tweeting, as will others, at the hashtag #HCsummit13. John Toussaint, MD will be doing his keynote at…
As he mentioned on his blog, John Toussaint has co-authored a piece that was published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings: “The Promise of Lean in Health Care” (PDF). John is excited that the article will be read by many physicians,…
Listen A returning guest for episode #159 is John Toussaint, MD, the CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value and the author of the books On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry and Potent…