Joining me for Episode #267 is Stephen M. Shortell PhD, MPH, MBA. He is Blue Cross of California Distinguished Professorship, HPM and is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health.
He is the director of the Center for Healthcare Organizational and Innovation Research (CHOIR). Today, we are talking about Lean healthcare and a new initiative that's part of CHOIR called CLEAR: the Center for Lean Engagement & Research in Healthcare. You can read a release about CLEAR, which highlights funding coming from the Lean Enterprise Institute, the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, and Rona Consulting Group.
In this episode, we talk about the Center, their planned research, and some reasons why there is variation in what organizations would describe as “Lean” – variation in methods and approach as well as variation in results.
Streaming Player (Run Time 38:10)
For a link to this episode, refer people to www.leanblog.org/267.
Shortell: #Lean is new way of managing, from the CEO on down... using scientific methods & empowering front line staff. Share on X
See this article that he co-authored with John Toussaint and Patrick Conway:
The Toyota Production System: What Does It Mean, And What Does It Mean For Health Care?
Topics for this episode:
- Please introduce yourself and your background in healthcare and health policy
- Tell us about the CLEAR (Center for Lean Engagement and Research in Healthcare)
- What are Accountable Care Organizations and how does that relate to Lean?
- How did you first get introduced to Lean and John Toussaint?
- Why do we need to speed up the transformation of healthcare?
- How does payment reform put more pressure on healthcare organizations?
- Is there sometimes controversy about reducing variation or using standardized work?
- What do you hope to learn through the CLEAR research?
- What other quality methods have you researched and looked at over the past few decades?
- Why is quality improvement sometimes so elusive? Or is cost reduction actually harder?
- What will be published and shared publicly?
- Do you have any initial thoughts on why we see variation in Lean practice and Lean results in healthcare?
Previous podcast with Dean Gruner on ACOs:
For earlier episodes of my podcast, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS, through Android apps, or via Apple Podcasts. You can also subscribe and listen via Stitcher.
Thanks for listening!
Videos with Steve Shortell
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[…] Listen to CLEAR co-director Stephen Shortell on Mark Graban’s Lean Blog podcast, where he discussed lean in healthcare and the plans for research at CLEAR. […]