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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Lean Can Be Very Fragile, Especially With Executive Changes

Lean can be very fragile. History shows that Lean can fall apart even in an organization that is years into a "Lean journey" with strong CEO involvement.

How is this possible? If often happens when a new CEO is brought in from the outside. In the case of the manufacturing company, Wiremold, it happened when they were acquired by a French company, Legrand.

As an aside, the team that coined the term "Lean" almost used the term "fragile," as I blogged about here.

Back in 2007, Bob Emiliani joined me for Episode #30 of the podcast. As we revisit the podcast and the new transcript I had made, what are the lessons for manufacturers or hospitals?

What's the risk that's created when new leadership takes over?

Employee Complaints About Lean in Healthcare, Even at Some of the Best Organizations

Last week, I blogged about some employee complaints related to rotating day and night shifts at the Toyota San Antonio plant. In that post, I mentioned that employees who post on Glassdoor.com and other sites might not be a representative sample of the full employee population.

With that in mind, what happens when we search the Glassdoor surveys of some well-known "Lean hospitals?"

I posted a few of these employee comments on LinkedIn the other day (a short post that has received over 50,000 views and prompted a lot of discussion).

More Thoughts on the Next Japan Lean & Kaizen Study Trip

Again, there's still time to sign up for the next Lean and Kaizen study trip to Japan that I'm facilitating with Kaizen Institute, from February 26 to March 2, 2018. There's still room in the tour if you'd like to join us.

In this post, I share some of my thoughts - answers to questions posed by Kaizen Institute. And, I share some thoughts from Risa Cox, from Kaizen Institute.

All Organizations Need a “Make Me”

Today's post is written by Steve Hoeft, the SVP, Chief of Operations Excellence at Baylor Scott & White Health (BSWH) here in Texas. This is his first written contribution to Lean Blog, but you might remember him as a guest in episode #226 of my podcast, where he and co-author Dr. Bob Pryor talked about their book The Power of Ideas to Transform Healthcare: Engaging Staff by Building Daily Lean Management Systems.

His article begins: "In my years serving as continuous improvement leader and consultant for some great organizations, I've discovered something consistent: Improvement will not happen on its own."

Eisenhower on Leadership, Sounds like a Lean Thinker to Me

You might think that "command and control" leadership styles are a thing of the past. But, old habits die slowly and many leaders today still seem to have a mental model that longs for a workforce that would "just do what they're told."

What did former President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower say about leaders who are "hitting people over the head?" I blog about that here...

Podcast #296 – Dr. Zeev N. Kain on Lean and Clinical Variation

Joining me for Episode #296 of the podcast is Zeev N. Kain, MD. MBA, FAAP. He is a physician and a Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

He has many additional roles and titles, including:

Director, System Redesign & Value Based Care for the UC-Irvine Health Policy Research Institute
Executive Director of the UCI-Yale Center on Stress & Health
President of the American College of Perioperative Medicine

Dr. Kain is "recognized as an international expert in the clinical management of perioperative fear and anxiety, and management of children undergoing invasive medical procedures. His research addresses major dilemmas encountered in the management of affected children."

He's also an advocate for Lean and Six Sigma and the connections to reducing "clinical variation" in healthcare. So, that's what we're talking about today.

Lean Healthcare Innovation at Atrius Health: Building a “Care in Place” Model

My guests for Episode #295 are Sarah Steinberg of Atrius Health and Ted Toussaint, a healthcare innovation strategist, formerly of Atrius Health. Ted is also a faculty member for Catalysis. 

Today, we're talking about some innovative work that they led at Atrius, using a variety of modern product development and innovation methods, including Lean, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and more to create a new "Care in Place" model for home-based patient care that helps reduce trips to a clinic or hospital. Their work was featured in this HBR article: "How Atrius Health Is Making the Shift from Volume to Value."

Podcast #294 – Clay Linkous, Studer Group Principles & #Lean

Joining me for episode #294 is Clay Linkous, an account leader and speaker with Studer Group. He is an accomplished cultural transformation and leadership expert who has synthesized Lean and other improvement methods with Studer Group principles and practices.

Today, we'll talk about Clay's career and his purpose and motivations - both for working in healthcare and improving healthcare. We're both firm believers in the combination of Studer and Lean practices, so we're also discussing that as our main topic.

I hope you enjoy the discussion!

Throwback Thursday: A Look Back at Japan #Lean Healthcare Study Trips

For today's Throwback Thursday, I'd like to look back at some blog posts about the trips I took to Japan in 2012 and 2014 to study Lean healthcare and Kaizen with healthcare practitioners from around the world.

I'm again partnering with Kaizen Institute to plan and help lead a trip that will be held in the last week of February, as I wrote about here...

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