Blogs or podcasts about lean healthcare or those that cover lean topics at least some of the time: Lean Blog – Healthcare Posts (Mark Graban) Lean Vets (Chip Ponsford, DVM and Mark Graban) Virginia Mason Blog (Virginia Mason Medical Center) Catalysis…
I wanted to post a few updates about some efforts related to the Lean Enterprise Institute: WIHI audio session on lean healthcare today 4 PM with John Toussaint, Steve Spear, and Gary Kaplan The upcoming book “On the Mend“ Our…
Something Lean is in the water in Wisconsin, as that state is one of the hotbeds of Lean healthcare. There’s, of course, the ThedaCare story (from Appleton) and the upcoming book about their journey (“On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to…
The Winnipeg Free Press has an article about their local St. Boniface Hospital, a member of the LEI/ThedaCare network I’m involved with called the Healthcare Value Network. About 40 of us from different Network member organizations visited last Thursday and…
Due out in June is a book that I think will be an important one for the Lean Healthcare movement. That book is about the Lean journey of the Wisconsin health system ThedaCare. It’s called On the Mend: Transforming Healthcare…
TL;DR: Patient safety leader Lucian Leape’s critique appears less about Lean itself and more about “L.A.M.E.”–Lean As Misguidedly Executed. True Lean in healthcare prioritizes patient safety, quality, and respect for people; when those are missing, the problem isn’t Lean–it’s how…
I have strong ties and connections to the state of Michigan, growing up in Livonia, starting my career there in Livonia, and having my parents and many friends in the area, although I moved away in 1997. I was thrilled…
If you’ve searched for “Lean methodology,” you’ve probably seen definitions about waste reduction or efficiency. That’s part of it — but Lean is much more than that. It’s a leadership system for building better organizations. I’ve been studying and practicing…
Those who follow Lean healthcare know that Virginia Mason Medical Center, in Seattle, is one of the world’s leaders in improving care through Lean methods. They were featured last year on the CBS Evening News, for example. The LeanROI.org site,…
I will try to be careful with this topic, since I’m obviously not a doctor. Criticism of doctors gets thrown around pretty easily around many hospitals, too much so, I think. You sometimes hear blanket criticisms about doctors being difficult,…
I only watched a few minutes of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda’s live testimony (thanks to online cable news streaming), but the first things I heard prompted me to Tweet about it and I’m following up with a quick post. You…
For a number of reasons, I’ve decided to re-read my copy of one of the most influential books I’ve ever read: Out of the Crisis by the late, great Dr. W. Edwards Deming. In the light of Toyota’s recent quality…