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.
TL;DR: Why do outdated practices linger in Lean and healthcare? This post dives into the clash between habit and evidence, exploring examples from surgical rituals to “starting with 5S.” True Lean thinking means questioning what we’ve always done–and being brave…
My guest for Episode #341 of the podcast is Dr. Rob Hackett, an anaesthesiologist in Sydney, Australia. Rob has become known around the world for his role in what’s now called the “Theatre Cap Challenge” — a method for improving…
Healthcare – Creating Value for Patients A group of Winnipeg physicians is opening a clinic designed to treat non-emergent patients in an effort to reduce Emergency Room overcrowding. Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Sun is skeptical that it addresses any underlying causes…
I haven’t read it, but Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing has been a pop-culture phenomenon in the past few years. I’ve seen some compare her process to the Lean…
Here’s an interesting column from Becker’s Hospital Review, written by Michael Dowling, President and CEO, Northwell Health. I’m guessing he created the headline, since the phrase “give a damn” doesn’t appear in the article: Michael Dowling: CEOs — Give a…
Ryan and I are co-sponsoring a workshop that I’ll be presenting on “Measures of Success” in Winnipeg on May 10. Learn more. Healthcare – Creating Value for Patients In Canada, we wait. A long time. Especially if you are referred…
Mark’s note: This post is reprinted from an email from Laura Batz Townsend, the CEO of the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation. I asked to share it here, on the tenth anniversary of Louise Batz’s tragic death that was…
Joining me for Episode #340 of the podcast is Dr. Joy Furnival CEng MIET, an experienced senior NHS manager, improvement leader, and chartered engineer. I first crossed paths with Joy at a Lean healthcare event in England back in 2007.…
Yesterday, I blogged about a CNO who was changing the culture at a hospital away from blaming individual nurses for system problems. The HealthLeaders article I wrote about didn’t talk about “Lean” per se. But, that single idea about moving…
Here’s the latest in an occasional ongoing series I call “A Lean Guy Reads ________”. Today, I’m reading the latest issue of Health Leaders magazine (March/April 2019) whose cover features a number of stories about nursing retention. The lead article…
Ryan and I are co-sponsoring a workshop that I’ll be presenting on “Measures of Success” in Winnipeg on May 10. Learn more. Healthcare – Creating Value for Patients A hospital in India continues to develop world-class surgical practices at a…
Joining me for Episode #339 of the podcast is Charles Protzman, author of a great number of Lean healthcare books. Today, we are talking about a book that he wrote for a broader audience, The BASICS Lean Implementation Model: Lean…
