Great Posts from Quint Studer
Quint Studer is a former hospital CEO who I’ve mentioned a lot here. He has an outstanding blog now. In his issues, he doesn’t talk about “lean” per se, but it absolutely applies, whether you are in healthcare or any…
Tag Healthcare
Healthcare Improvement Through Lean, Leadership, and Learning
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.
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More on Healthcare Incentives
In China, Preventive Medicine Pits Doctor Against System – WSJ.com: Continuing the discussion from Evolving Excellence, today’s WSJ has a well timed article. This isn’t just an American problem…. seems like human nature, this conflict: “Dr. Hu Weimin has attracted…
Trying to Reduce Hospital Overprocessing
A Novel Plan Helps Hospital Wean Itself Off Pricey Tests – WSJ.com Kevin, over at Evolving Excellence, raised a similar issue about misaligned incentives and misleading metrics in healthcare (thanks for the mention, Kevin). This article, linked above, from the…
RFID as a Workaround
I’ve been wondering for a while what the value of my CPIM certification is (a previous employer paid for it). APICS has been trying to reinvent itself as more of a lean organization rather than just being an MRP methodology…
Toyota’s Factory Medical Center
Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » In-house Health Clinics Tip of the hat to John for finding this article about companies bringing some doctor clinic functions in-house (or at least on site) as a way of reducing medical expenses. The…
Calling DFW or Texas Lean Companies
Personal request — I’m looking for a Dallas/Fort Worth area company that is in an advanced state of lean implementation. (that’s quite a flexible definition of what “advanced” means, obviously). West Texas (Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Abilene, El Paso) or Central Texas…
ThedaCare Continues the Lean Journey
ThedaCare program gets boost ThedaCare has already been seen as a leader in applying lean to hospitals, but its good to see they are continuing their efforts after three years. It’s also nice to see a manufacturer (Miller Electric) partnering…
Signs are Not Error Proofing: Electrical Circuit Breaker Edition
I saw this at a hospital lab last year, a great example of true error proofing vs. just putting up warning signs. “Cautions” and “Warnings” are lazy engineering, in general, with product design. Signs are not good problem-solving in any…
Your Lean Year in Review
Happy New Year! As 2006 ends, I hope many of you had a GREAT lean year. Please add your comments about your lean accomplishments for the year, or at least one key lean accomplishment. I was very fortunate to do…
Quality is Free in Healthcare?
Hospital cost, quality are at odds In the manufacturing world, the old “mass production” thinking said there was a tradeoff in cost and quality, that high quality must inherently cost more to produce (due to more inspections, high quality materials,…
Why Quota for Nurses Isn’t Cure-All
WSJ Article ($) | Free Version of Article Thanks to Dan Markovitz for pointing this article out to me a few days ago: At IHI’s patient-safety conference today in Orlando, Fla., Ms. Rutherford is presenting an alternative to ratios: a…
We’d be fine if you just Paid us More
Hospitals prescribe increased reimbursements from insurers to aid recovery of sickly health care system Hospitals need to learn to reduce costs. You can’t just ask for more money to cover your rising costs. It’s a frequent topic on this blog,…
