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.
I had a chat with somebody from a hospital recently who asked about following one Lean principle, and that led to a conflict with another Lean principle. Here was the gist of the discussion… she said that the hospital centralized…
Listen: Joining me for episode #182 are Michael Grogan and Dr. Brenda Dmello, joining me via Skype from Tanzania where they are working together to use Lean to improve health care at the Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT).…
QHSE Focus, an iPad magazine, asked me to contribute a piece on Lean healthcare. They published my piece titled, “Employee & Patient Safety: The Only Moral Place to Start with Lean in Healthcare.” You can read a PDF of the…
I was fortunate to have the chance to speak and visit at a few hospitals in Sweden back in February, 2010 (see my blog post from that year). One of those hospitals, St. Göran (in Stockholm), was recently featured in…
There’s a great Taaichi Ohno quote that I was reminded of last week (see a previous post from 2010 on this). “Data is of course important in manufacturing, but I place the greatest emphasis on facts.” I was in northern…
Mark’s note: Today’s guest post is by Michael Grogan, a native of Ireland who left his Lean job in the U.S. to follow his calling to help bring Lean healthcare to Tanzania. Read his blog post about his first 79…
Listen: Joining me for episode #180 of the Lean Blog Podcast is Dan Florizone, who served from 2008 until last month as Deputy Minister of Health in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Dan has just recently transitioned into his new…
Again, I’m very happy to host the Carnival for John Hunter and his Curious Cat management improvement blog. My job here is to share some noteworthy and thought provoking posts from the past few weeks from the blogs I try…
While I love interviewing others for my Podcast series, sometimes the tables and the microphones get turned and I get interviewed. Here are a few recent interviews where I was yapping about Lean healthcare, Kaizen, and KaiNexus. Money for Lunch…
There’s a great piece, currently available for free on the HBR website, about continuous improvement: The Culture to Cultivate The author, George Halvorson, is the recently retired CEO of Kaiser Permanente and it’s really helpful that he is writing about…
My guests for Podcast #179 are my friends Judy Worth and Tom Shuker, two of the co-authors of the book Perfecting Patient Journeys, which was published earlier this year by the Lean Enterprise Institute. About the book: “Perfecting Patient Journeys” is…
I’m happy to announce that I’m partnering with TechSolve, a non-profit organization in Ohio, to jointly deliver three day-long workshops on Kaizen and Lean for healthcare. There will be sessions in Findlay, Columbus, and Akron on August 6th, 7th, and…
