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.
I get sort of tired of seeing questions like this on the internet (on the Yahoo Group for Healthcare Management Engineers): Just wondering if anyone has placed computers in each patient room? What layout has worked the best? One that…
Part of the MoveToHealthcare.com series: Here is an updated and better maintained list…. Lean Healthcare Blogs (or those that cover Lean quite often): Lean Blog (link healthcare posts only) Daily Kaizen (Group Health Cooperative) Lean Healthcare Exchange Steven J. Spear…
Hospitals need I.E. Data to Drive Staffing Decisions My hand is feeling a bit carpel-tunnel-ish today (that’s not a diagnosis). So I’ll take the opportunity to use something I already wrote for the Society for Health Systems newsletter (published recently).…
Code red in the nation’s hospital corridors | CLOSE UP Thanks to Michael from New Zealand for pointing this story to me. The link above has an 11 minute video on from their equivalent of a 60 Minutes type show.…
TL;DR: Lean initiatives often fail not because teams execute poorly, but because leaders never clearly define the real problem they are trying to solve. Taiichi Ohno’s advice to “start from need” remains a decisive test of whether Lean will drive…
By Dean Bliss I recently attended Perfecting Patient Care University, a 4-day training event that teaches Lean in healthcare. The University is a product of the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI), which has been around since the late 1990’s, was…
Biden Takes Shot at Roberts for Flubbing Presidential Oath – First 100 Days of Presidency – Politics FOXNews.com On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to flub his giving of the presidential oath of office, leaving out the word “faithfully”…
TRANSCRIPT: Obama’s Inaugural Address: I guess this is a “mashup” of sorts… between Dr. W. Edwards Deming and President Obama… The President said yesterday, in his inauguration speech: “We will … wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and…
Reminder: Reader Survey Link (2 minutes of your time) Economy brings layoffs at Kearney hospital – Top Local Stories – News : KHAS-TV Here is a story from Nebraska, local TV news again, about Lean at a hospital. If you…
Q&A Nov/Dec 2008 – Trimming the Fat I was featured in Healthcare Construction + Operations News in a recent issue where we talked about my book and Lean in healthcare. You can read the whole thing for free, here is…
Local doctors cut stress Below is a video from an Albuquerque TV news station, visiting a doctor’s office that was implementing Lean. I wish I could take credit… it was work done by someone I know, actually. The video shows…
I had a great conversation with a fellow healthcare lean thinker the other day. She shared my book, Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction, with the CEO and some other executives at a hospital she works with.…