They just started a year ago (better late than never?), but San Francisco General Hospital had its Lean efforts highlighted in the San Francisco Chronicle last week: “S.F. General following ‘Toyota Way’ to efficiency.” On the very same day, another…
It’s been just over five years since the first edition of my book Lean Hospitals was released and just over a year since Healthcare Kaizen was released. Joe Swartz and I are happy to say that The Executive Guide to…
Joe Swartz and I are building upon our well-received (and Shingo Research Award winning) book Healthcare Kaizen with a new special edition aimed at busy senior leaders. The book is available for pre-order now at Amazon.com: The Executive Guide to…
It’s again time to close some browser tabs and clear out the backlog of articles I’ve wanted to share but maybe don’t merit an entire blog post… It’s time again for “Stuff I’m Reading”… Click on any header for the…
I had a chance to attend the Lean Kanban North America conference this week. It was a different “tribe” to be a part of, as the topics focused on software and IT settings, including agile development, “kanban” project management, and…
There’s an excellent blog post on the Virginia Mason Medical Center site: “Does respecting co-workers make patients safer?“ As a leader in adopting and adapting Toyota management methods to healthcare, Virginia Mason understands that “respect for people” is a core…
Like yesterday’s “live blog” post about the Autoliv talk, I also wrote this post as Art Byrne talked, but held it for publication today. He is author of the book The Lean Turnaround: How Business Leaders Use Lean Principles to…
I always get annoyed when people spread the false dichotomy of “Lean is about efficiency and Six Sigma is for quality.” Replace the word “efficiency” with “speed” or “flow” and it’s still wrong. Here is an example of this falsehood…
TL;DR: Nurses typically spend only 30% of their time on direct patient care. This post walks through the eight types of waste in healthcare — with real hospital examples — and how Lean methods have helped some organizations reclaim that…
TL;DR: At Toyota, the principle is closer to “respect for humanity” than “respect for people” — and that difference matters. It’s not a slogan or a soft value. It is one of two equally important pillars of the Toyota Production…
I’ve been talking to a lot of healthcare organizations about Kaizen and continuous improvement. There are many organizations embracing the methods that Joe Swartz and I wrote about in Healthcare Kaizen. I think there’s some momentum building out there for…
I recently saw this headline in the London Evening Standard: “Nurses struggle to ‘get the job done’ due to staff shortages and lack of time on 12 hour shifts.” The article starts with jumping to solutions (needing/wanting more staff), but…
