ThedaCare has long been regarded as one of the most influential examples of Lean thinking in healthcare. These posts explore what ThedaCare’s journey actually teaches leaders—about management systems, executive commitment, strategy deployment, culture change, and the fragility of improvement when leadership changes.
Rather than treating Lean as a set of tools or success stories frozen in time, this archive examines real lessons, missteps, evolution, and leadership reflections from ThedaCare and others who have studied or worked with the organization.
Those of you who know my background know that I spent the first 10 years of my career working in various manufacturing sectors (including GM, Dell, and Honeywell). I moved into healthcare in 2005, part of the wave of people…
I found this lengthy series of articles from the Las Vegas Sun, published under the heading of “Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas.” The series serves as a good introduction to those who are new to healthcare and…
Just before the new year, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured the Lean efforts at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (“St. Louis hospital among handful using efficiency to aid patients“). I think it’s more than a “handful” of hospitals around the world using Lean…
Following up my notes from Day 1, I’m sharing my notes from the second full day I attended on Wednesday, December 8 2010. Here, in the last day of the IHI National Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare, I saw…
There’s a long-standing argument that I’ve been dragged into with a group that calls itself “new systems thinkers.” They loudly criticize Lean as being altogether awful (with the alternative, predictably, being their services). One of them wrote a blog post…
The Lean Enterprise Institute has posted the follow up text Q&A by John Toussaint MD and Roger Gerard PhD, co-authors of the book On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry. These were extra questions from…
I’m going to use this blog post / page to collect published statistics about the impact the Lean management philosophy has had on healthcare quality and patient safety. I will update this over time and this page can be accessed…
It’s time for a Lean Blog feature where I throw a few links at you – articles I’ve saved and read that maybe don’t merit a full post, but are worth sharing and making a brief comment on. I often…
It seems to be an annual event to see a news story about a New Zealand emergency department, Dunedin Hospital (not pictured at left) as reported by the Otago Times. It’s year three and the board “wants some traction” and…
Thanks to FierceHealthcare.com for publishing my guest article on the front page of their site: “How lean management helped hospitals avoid layoffs.” The article features quotes from two of our Healthcare Value Network organizations, ThedaCare and Akron Children’s Hospital, and…
In what looks like a badly Photoshopped cover – it’s a real photo, I’ve confirmed – INSIGHT Magazine, a Wisconsin business publication, has an article worth reading about Dr. John Toussaint and ThedaCare. The article link is here: “Dr. Ideas:…
Reminder: I’ll be on “The Lean Nation” today at 4 PM (more details) In this article about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, “Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s (rather run-of-the-mill) house: Facebook founder gives rare glimpse into his private life on Oprah“, there is…