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 saw this last week when doing some lean assessment work with a hospital Operating Room and support services. One of the main support services is the department that cleans and sterilizes instruments for the Operating Rooms. As part of…
STLtoday – News – Science & Medicine This was sent to me by blog reader Joe. He was appalled to read about this and I understand where he’s coming from. It’s hard to understand that hospitals can throw their hands…
I was able to tour a hospital laboratory that had already gone through the lean process. One metric was a daily tally of “sticks per day” (that’s what a Phlebotomist — a person who draws your blood — calls it…
Drug makers must think about different packaging | IndyStar.com Here’s a picture of the two drugs that were mixed up when the three babies were killed at the hospital in Indianapolis last week. As the MD wrote in the letter-to-the-editor…
This is an incredibly sad, and completely preventable, situation. Three babies are dead, and three more injured, because the wrong drug was administered to them at an Indianapolis hospital. Let’s keep in mind, first, this quote from the World Health…
Squeezing the fat from health care – baltimoresun.com Here is another nice overview of some of the results seen from the application of Lean Thinking to the healthcare realm. One thing the healthcare people understand better than manufacturing folks is…
Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing thoughts | Gemba Panta Rei Thanks to the Gemba blog. The article he linked to talks about the need to cut costs in healthcare and mentions the Virginia Mason Hospital with its Virginia Mason Production System…
Oregon Health Forum – Events Thanks to Andrea for this. Who is Virginia Mason and why does she have a production system? No, it’s a hospital, one of the leaders in the lean healthcare world. Here is a link to…
AME – The Association For Manufacturing Excellence. Welcome Here is a chance to tour Saint Mary’s Health Care, in Grand Rapids Michigan, via the AME. The tour is November 7, 2006. Click on the link above for more details. COMING…
State’s long disciplinary process doesn’t protect patients, critics say Here is a story about complaints with Florida’s disciplinary system for physicians. The system seems to be based very much on individual blame and punishment for things gone wrong. If an…
Here is LeanBlog Podcast #4, again featuring Dr. Jeffrey Liker, My guest for episode #4 of the Lean Blog Podcast is Dr. Jeffrey Liker, professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. This is part two of…
I ran into my first real “nasty” person in the healthcare world back a few months back. I still have my scars from working on lean and improvement activities in the factory world, the nasty looks and the negative attitudes…
