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.
In healthcare patient safety circles, there’s always a lot of discussion about lessons learned from aviation safety. Aviation has gotten much safer over the past few decades, while each new study done in healthcare indicates the patient safety problem is…
Today’s guest post is by Duke Rohe, a Quality Improvement Education Consultant at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. I know Duke from his ongoing involvement with the Society for Health Systems. Check out his previous guest post on Kaizen (continuous…
I recently stumbled across a very interesting and well-produced mixed-media presentation that starts with the sounds of snow crackling under a pair a boots… a video clip that illustrates Delvecchio Finley, the CEO of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, making a snowy trip…
To close out the year 2013, I once again need to close some browser tabs that are full of things that I was maybe going to write about, but don’t merit a full post. So, the latest in my occasional…
Listen: My guest for Episode 188 has been a leading voice in the Lean community for 25 years, Daniel T. Jones, founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy, based in the UK. Dan collaborated with Jim Womack on the…
In addition to the Healthcare Kaizen class that Joe Swartz and I are doing in Detroit on January 22 (with a 10% reader discount), we might also do a class in Orlando, immediately before or after the Society for Health Systems…
Today and tomorrow, I’m attending the Lean Startup conference in San Francisco (the event produced by Eric Ries, the author of The Lean Startup). I’ll be learning a lot of ideas by attending presentations and networking, which will be applicable…
tl;dr: “Accountability” in most organizations means blame — but real accountability starts with leaders fixing systems, not punishing individuals who can’t do the right thing because the system won’t let them. One of our topics, prompted by some feedback from…
Mark’s Note: Today brings another guest post from Joe Swartz, my co-author for our Healthcare Kaizen series of books. Read his previous posts here. I also did a podcast with him about his experiences at the Franciscan St. Francis…
Mark’s Note: Today’s guest post is by Joe Swartz, my co-author for the books Healthcare Kaizen and The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. Joe will be a regular contributor in the future and I also did a podcast with him…
Thankfully, it was nothing harmful or that dangerous… but I committed a medical mistake on myself last Saturday. I tweaked my lower back last Wednesday – something that, thankfully, isn’t a chronic problem (but I did just turn 40). It…
I grew up just outside of Detroit, so I’m always pulling for the city to turn things around. The newly-elected mayor, Mike Duggan, is the former CEO of Detroit Medical Center. Back in 2009, I blogged about a radio commercial…
