Tag: Healthcare

Does your healthcare organization struggle with keeping hand sanitizer dispensers full? Let me know what you think of this "two-bin kanban" system prototype from a vendor that might more forward on this...

Thanks to Lean Frontiers for sharing a story from Mike Hoseus on LinkedIn. Mike is, of course, co-author of the excellent book Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way (written with Jeff Liker, who I just learned is retiring from the University of Michigan... more on that soon).

A reader asks why I got involved with Lean in healthcare. In this post, I share what I wrote about this in the preface to "Lean Hospitals" and I share some additional thoughts and reflections.

Here are three audience questions we didn't have time to address after a recent talk that I gave... questions about engaging people in improvement and about how to share and spread improvement ideas broadly.

Joining me for Episode #281 of the podcast is Julie Firman, DNP, RN, FACHE, the Vice President/ System Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) at Southern Illinois Healthcare.

Today's reader question comes from somebody who has been put in the position of what I call "the lone wolf" in a health system. This happens a lot. A health system hires or designates one person to be "the Lean change agent." It doesn't matter how amazing and/or experienced this individual is... I'd very skeptical about the organization's Lean journey.

The mistakes at The Oscars were trivial and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. What are some lessons learned that apply to improving healthcare supply chains?

We don't have money for improvement initiatives, but we do have money to burn on a daily basis due to poor quality and bad systems?

I was interviewed for Dr. Diane Hamilton's internet radio show and podcast, called "Take the Lead." We talked about Lean Hospitals, Healthcare Kaizen, and more.

A Lean-thinking physician from Canada asks how many people an organization or department should have in a dedicated Lean or continuous improvement function. How much time is needed from staff and managers?

One of the highlights of my podcasting adventures was the opportunity to interview Paul H. O'Neill back in 2011. The original episode was posted here as #124 in the series. This post a summary of our discussion.

Last week, I received a few questions from somebody at a hospital system and I thought I'd address one of them here: "Can you suggest any "quick wins" to get staff engaged in a Lean culture?"