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.
Mark’s note: This is a guest post made available for me to post by Barnes-Jewish Hospital. by Laurie Wolf and Nancy Sigillito The full article is available as a PDF download at the bottom of the post.
I just finished Dr. Atul Gawande’s latest book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. I believe that this book is the single most important book of the year for ANY Lean leader, not just people working in healthcare.…
Here is an article that discusses the adoption of Lean methods at Akron Children’s Hospital (“Hospital embraces lean strategies of manufacturing“). The article spells out how the hospital didn’t need the typical “mores” that most organizations want: More money More…
As I’m traveling back from Sweden today, I think I’ll be catching up on the web reaction to Toyota’s major quality problems and recalls. I am not a Toyota insider and I don’t claim to know what happened or what…
I had an incredible visit to a hospital in Stockholm yesterday, to walk the “gemba” (the actual workplace) to see their lean improvement efforts first hand. I’ll share some details and highlights over time here on the blog. One…
One project I’m involved with at the LEI is an online video education event on the topic of “strategy deployment,” confusing known also as “hoshin kanri” or “hoshin planning” or “policy deployment.” I know, let’s pick a name already. This…
As I’m currently in Sweden, I was reminded of this video I found recently featuring John Black, a lean healthcare consultant and author who previously worked with Boeing and Gary Larson, a Vice President from Park Nicollet in Minneapolis (a…
Note from 2026: I first published this in 2010. The idea that Lean is loving care came from clinicians at St. Elisabeth Hospital in Tilburg, the Netherlands, and it has held up better than most of what I wrote that…
Sorry, the hospital had reconsidered and they asked me to take the video down. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.
This news story, “Ottawa Hospital seeks fourth MRI machine,” from Ottawa describes an unfortunate situation where 90% of patients had been waiting 360 days for an MRI. So the hospital added capacity – by adding a third MRI machine (an…
This article from Detroit’s Crain’s Business Journal (“Lean machine: Health care follows auto’s lead, gears up for efficiency”) highlights a growing lean healthcare movement in my home state of Michigan, one that, ironically, traces its origins back to Toyota General…
Episode #9 is a new video discussion with Dr. Bahri, the “World’s First Lean Dentist” (see also Video Podcast #5). Today we talk about lessons he has learned from touring factories and why focusing on single piece flow is a…
