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.
Hearst Press Release August 09, 2009 This will be developing over the next few days. The Hearst newspaper chain has done a huge expose of the continuing problems with deaths due to preventable errors and infections in hospitals. The website…
I had the TV news on and I found this commercial… if you can make out the text it reads: “4.2L V8 ENGINE THE DELIVERS 405 HP” D’oh!! That’s quite a typo. As Google points out: Yes, the voiceover said…
Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority Supports ‘National Patient Safety Day’ – Press Releases – CNBC.com I was walking through Boston Common this morning and saw a woman with a homemade sign that said something about patient safety. I stopped her and…
It has been over 10 years since the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s study on preventable medical errors: To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. So how are we doing? Are there still nearly 100,000 patients dying…
… I wasn’t impressed in the least. In my previous role as a consultant, I was given a company vehicle to use, even though it was basically for commuting to a local client, the airport, and occasional personal use. I…
Op-Ed Contributor – Health Care’s Infectious Losses – NYTimes.com FINALLY, a major contribution to the discussion about how we need to improve the quality of care delivery. That’s how we are truly going to bring costs down – by improving…
IVF baby given to wrong woman – as couple’s last embryo was aborted | Mail Online This was front-page news in one of the UK papers that I read coming back from The Netherlands on Sunday. Coincidentally, I briefly saw…
Britain’s health service “facing funding crisis” | Reuters: Watching the BBC morning news the other day, I took an interest in the discussion of the cash crunch with the National Health Service and their “free” (free at the point of…
After watching and blogging about the first half of Oprah’s medical errors show that featured the story of Dennis Quaid’s kids, I finally got into the second half. The first story is that of Molly (left), a woman who was…
Thanks to XM Radio, I was able to listen to Sunday’s Detroit Red Wings playoff game and the WJR radio broadcast from Detroit (the “great voice of the Great Lakes”). I heard a commercial a few times that I managed…
Lean Leap to Health Care #3 (click for Part #2) by Scott McDuffee It would seem to be an efficient method to move into Health Care to PUSH my resume to as many potential employers as possible – thus increasing…
Why ‘Quality’ Care Is Dangerous – WSJ.com Yesterday’s WSJ opinion piece by Dr. Jerome Goopman (author of How Doctors Think) and Pamela Hartzband caught my eye. Thanks to the four or five of you who also emailed me the link…
