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.
At the recent Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, there were thought provoking presentations... and we had many discussions about the role of incremental improvement vs. redesign or transformation. And, lots of discussions about imitating vs. innovating... so I explore those themes in this post.
This week, I’m in Palm Springs for the annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit. Follow along on Twitter using hashtag #HCSummit17. Today, I’m teaching my “Better Metrics” workshop for the third time this year. This page has some additional resources for attendees (the…
What if "easier" is less safe? Great question. It begs the question of why Safer isn't first in Shingo's list? Is it because safety is assumed to be such a fundamental pre-condition in the Toyota culture or the Lean approach? Safety is such a non-negotiable point that it doesn't need to be said?
A Lean-thinking physician from Canada asks how many people an organization or department should have in a dedicated Lean or continuous improvement function. How much time is needed from staff and managers?
In today's post, I write about James Hereford, a Lean thinker and leader who is now CEO of Fairview Health Services in Minnesota. I share some links to and highlights from a past podcast with him and other blog posts with his thoughts.
A few of you sent me this article... and you were correct to think I would be interested: "Inside Alabama's Auto Jobs Boom: Cheap Wages, Little Training, Crushed Limbs." What are the parallels and lessons for hospitals?
While I'm writing here about Northwestern men's basketball learning from Duke (without copying everything), the same ideas apply if you're Ford learning from Toyota or a hospital learning from ThedaCare.
Today is the start of the main days of the annual Society for Health Systems Conference. I think this is my 9th year attending out of the past 11 or so. Follow the action on Twitter using hashtag #SHS2017. Here are a few posts from the past conferences:
Why did "The Rock" and his movie make me think about Lean? Are many individuals (or organization's) willing to put time into continuous improvement every day for 20 years? If so, the results and "after" picture seem astonishing, right?
I don’t know anything about farming. The only time I spend on “farms” is visits to wineries that grow grapes, as I’ve blogged about before. I was contacted recently by Jesse Frost, who was working on this article that’s now…
A few weeks ago, I saw this announcement about Dean Gruner, MD, the second CEO to lead ThedaCare during their Lean journey: Dr. Dean Gruner, ThedaCare President and CEO, Announces Retirement “Dean Gruner, MD, president and CEO of ThedaCare since…
Back in September 2015, I wrote a post (“Learning to be Lean” – An Inside Look at a Rapid Improvement Event“) that linked to a Modern Healthcare article about a Rapid Improvement Event at Presence Health in Illinois. The piece…
