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.
RedNova News – Health – Q & A With Matthew Furlan The subject of this article apparently received some top-notch lean training from Shingijitsu and HON Industries before moving into healthcare. Many of the things he says can also be…
Eyewitness News 11.com: Duke Awaits Analysis in Instrument Probe: It’s lean healthcare day on the blog, I guess. This is an update to a story reported earlier. “Bassett received a letter from Duke in January, which said surgical instruments had…
David K. Wessner, President and chief executive officer of Park Nicollet Health Services.Here is a column from the leader of a Minnesota non-profit hospital, defendng the idea that using TPS is health care does not mean an “assembly line” for…
College of American Pathologists: It’s much more fun to think about what could be (lean healthcare) than what was (GM’s dominance in the auto industry). The early stages of a lean laboratory sound very much like the early lean stages…
Washington Post (via MSNBC): Another example of the waste-filled health care system adopting TPS methods and approaches: “In adopting the Toyota mind-set, Kaplan said, the 350-bed hospital has saved $6 million in planned capital investment, freed 13,000 square feet of…
WRAL.com I’ve talked a little about using lean to prevent medical mistakes. This mistake, someone using hydraulic fluid to clean surgical instruments, is mind boggling. It mekes you wonder if the bottle/can of hydraulic fluid was in a bottle that…
Click for Article Another interesting example of “lean health care”. I’ve had a chance to take a tour with the lean process improvement team at Osborn Medical Center here in Scottsdale, AZ. It’s amazing to see lean and Toyota concepts…