Quality doesn’t come from inspection, pressure, or choosing between speed and accuracy. It comes from well-designed systems, capable processes, and leaders who focus on learning instead of blame. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on quality through a Lean and Deming lens—covering psychological safety, metrics, variation, leadership behavior, healthcare quality, and why sustainable improvement depends on fixing systems rather than managing people harder.
Today, I’m linking to a fantastic interview and discussion between two luminaries in the patient safety world – Dr. Robert Wachter (read his blog) and Dr. Richard Shannon (who is featured, among other places, in the “Good News: How Hospitals…
I guess I have a burr in my saddle this week, being Independence Day and all, since I’m commenting on something from the UK again today. I don’t mean to come across as anti-Brit, as I love the UK. I…
Interesting news from Idaho, where an outside Lean consultant has been named interim CEO of St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center (see “Consultant to fill in as T.F. hospital CEO“). From the article: Mike Reno, a consultant helping St. Luke’s…
I saw this on the national cable news two nights ago, the horrifying story of a Denton TX woman whose house was basically destroyed by a bulldozer. Was it a runaway bulldozer? Nope, different type of “accident.” Workers were supposed…
Note: I edited the post title on April 3 to make it clear this was an April Fool’s Joke. Comments posted by readers on 4/1 and 4/2 may have been “fooled” – thanks for taking the joke in good spirits.…
The final keynote talk at the recent Society for Health Systems / ASQ Healthcare conference was given by Dr. Barry Silbaugh, a former hospital executive and the current CEO of the ACPE – The American College of Physician Executives. Silbaugh…
On Friday, I co-presented at the Society for Health Systems / ASQ Healthcare Division conference in Atlanta. It was the first time this was done jointly and it seemed we had more physicians and other clinical people around, which is…
I only watched a few minutes of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda’s live testimony (thanks to online cable news streaming), but the first things I heard prompted me to Tweet about it and I’m following up with a quick post. You…
Continuing my series on re-reading Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s book Out of the Crisis, I’m posting a series of tweets from the Chapter along with my thoughts and comments. At about 70 pages, it’s a long, dense chapter, including Deming’s…
As I’ve been re-reading Dr. Deming’s Out of the Crisis, stuff like this jumps out at me more and more. I saw similar signs at Heathrow Airport last month bragging about the airport exceeding targets for customer service. This is,…
As I’m traveling back from Sweden today, I think I’ll be catching up on the web reaction to Toyota’s major quality problems and recalls. I am not a Toyota insider and I don’t claim to know what happened or what…
Today was an exciting day at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement‘s 21st annual National Forum on Healthcare Quality Improvement. It’s my first time here, to learn and network. They have over 5,000 attendees who are committed to quality and patient…
