Healthcare improvement isn’t about working harder—it’s about better systems, better leadership, and a culture that supports learning and speaking up. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on Lean healthcare, patient safety, quality improvement, leadership, and continuous improvement. Many of these posts draw on real hospital experiences and lessons from Deming, Toyota, and frontline healthcare teams, with a consistent emphasis on respect for people and learning from mistakes.
There was an interesting article in the most recent Inc. Magazine called “Domestic Medical Tourism: How one company is saving businesses big bucks on employee medical treatments.” Much of the talk about “medical tourism” has focused on patients flying halfway…
Mark’s note: Today’s guest post is from Dr. Mark Jaben. I first met Mark in person at Cindy Jimmerson’s Lean Healthcare West conference in Montana last year. I’m happy to publish this new guest post to follow up his previous…
Podcaster Cali Lewis (a fellow DFW-area Texan) hosts a show called GeekBeat.tv, where she normally highlights new consumer tech gadgets and nerdy robots from MIT. Her most recent video features video from her visit to Boeing and their 737 assembly…
I love my Amazon Kindle (I have had a 2nd generation 3G Kindle for about two years). Amazon has recently made the device more “social,” where you can share highlights and notes that you take about a book via Twitter,…
Most (all?) of us here did NOT graduate from Harvard Medical School last week. But, we all can read the commencement address that was given by Dr. Atul Gawande, surgeon and author of great books such as Better: A Surgeon’s…
Here is a video from the St. Louis Beacon (actually, an NPR-style audio story with pictures) about Lean healthcare at Virginia Mason Medical Center, in Seattle, and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, in St. Louis. A few comments on what’s generally an excellent…
TL;DR: Time and motion studies haven’t been discredited–the Taylorist mindset behind them has. When used as an expert-driven tool to control workers or set quotas, they cause harm. When used the Lean way–by teaching people to study and improve their…
Here is the long overdue Part 4 of our video discussion series about Lean Healthcare Design, featuring Miguel Burbano, an architect and Senior Vice President with The Neenan Company, and Dr. Randall Huss, President of the St. John’s Clinic –…
It’s alphabet soup Saturday, as this IHI PDSA video comes from a PhD, Robert Lloyd. A great basic overview (or refresher course) for anyone involved in improvement or problem solving. From the IHI Open School’s online course: QI102 Lesson 4…
It’s my second post about the TV show Grey’s Anatomy, the first being “McDreamy” Fights the Blame Game on “Grey’s Anatomy.” Each post makes it less believable that I don’t watch the show religiously. Thanks go to my wife for…
As Mark Graban stated in a recent post, “People fear or assume that a factory is…mindless, monotonous, repetitive…” These sentiments may come from observation of one aspect of lean and manufacturing: rules and related rewards. There is the common (mis-)perception…
On a recent Sunday morning, I was watching cable news channels and two different commercials had a word jump out at me, words that are commonly used in the Lean management system. One commercial featured the term “mistake proofed” and…