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.
When I teach about Kaizen and continuous improvement, I try to use scenarios and cases to help people think through how they would respond to, coach, and collaborate on employee ideas. One key point is that leaders have to thank…
Editor’s note (2026): This post remains highly relevant as organizations increasingly rely on algorithmic scheduling, utilization targets, and AI-driven workforce planning. TL;DR: Zeynep Ton’s Good Jobs Strategy shows that cutting labor costs creates a vicious cycle of poor performance. In…
My wife and I were in Boston over the weekend, as it was her fifth reunion from her MIT master’s program. I’m also an alum, but was considered a “guest” since I graduated 16 years ago from my program and…
At this year’s Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit (see my summary here) Dr. John Toussaint talked about and introduced his newly released book Management on the Mend, a follow up to 2010’s On the Mend. Summit attendees received a copy of the book, so they’re…
Today, I’m sharing a 10-minute video that was shared by the Five Hills Health Region within the Saskatchewan health system. In the video, Heather, the director of women’s health unit and pediatrics, describes their kanban system for managing supplies and materials. They…
Wednesday was the first day of the 6th annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, being held this year in Addison (Dallas), Texas. I’m here and this year my colleagues Dr. Greg Jacobson and Jeff Roussel from KaiNexus are attending, so please say hi…
In American healthcare, there’s a growing gap between hospitals and clinics that are being innovative and those who are stuck in the “way it’s always been done” mode. For example, innovative primary care clinics are using a combination of better…
TL;DR: Lean is often misunderstood. It’s not about rushing patients, cutting staff, or blindly installing tools. When practiced properly, Lean is fundamentally patient-centered, focused on safety, quality, and respect for people. When organizations have bad experiences, that usually reflects poor…
I hope y’all had a nice Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S. It’s a global audience for the blog, but I had the take the day off from Lean (other than this post for the holiday). I spent a…
TL;DR: Lean works across factories, hospitals, startups, and services because it’s built on shared mindsets, not tools. These include customer focus, respect for people, going to the gemba, avoiding blame, solving problems at the root, and resisting “command and control.”…
The phrase “Lean journey” is used widely to describe an organization’s transformation over time. It’s either a phrase that invokes helpful imagery or it’s a horrible cliché. I was speaking at a Lean event last week and I kept hearing…
Joining me for episode #222 of the podcast is Erin S. DuPree, M.D., FACOG, the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare. Dr. DuPree is an OB/GYN by training, was previously the Chief Medical…
