Healthcare improvement isn’t about working harder—it’s about better systems, better leadership, and a culture that supports learning and speaking up. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on Lean healthcare, patient safety, quality improvement, leadership, and continuous improvement. Many of these posts draw on real hospital experiences and lessons from Deming, Toyota, and frontline healthcare teams, with a consistent emphasis on respect for people and learning from mistakes.
Q&A Nov/Dec 2008 – Trimming the Fat I was featured in Healthcare Construction + Operations News in a recent issue where we talked about my book and Lean in healthcare. You can read the whole thing for free, here is…
Local doctors cut stress Below is a video from an Albuquerque TV news station, visiting a doctor’s office that was implementing Lean. I wish I could take credit… it was work done by someone I know, actually. The video shows…
I had a great conversation with a fellow healthcare lean thinker the other day. She shared my book, Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction, with the CEO and some other executives at a hospital she works with.…
Donald Berwick: Curing the Healthcare System – BusinessWeek Good exposure for the applicability and use of Lean concepts in healthcare in BusinessWeek. Dr. Berwick is the head of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (based in Cambridge, coincidentally, like the Lean…
Here is part 3 of the results from my online survey about Kaizen Events in healthcare. You can find Part 1 and Part 2 in previous posts. One thing to keep in mind, and I’ll comment more on this another…
Following up on Part 1 of the survey results, we’ll now explore some of the results and lessons learned from event-driven Lean activities in hospitals and health systems (done under names such as Kaizen Events, Rapid Process Improvement Workshops, and…
Last month, I conducted a non-scientific online survey about the use of event-style Kaizen methodologies in healthcare. There were 41 responses, gathered from the following sources: www.leanblog.org The mailing list for my book, Lean Hospitals The Healthcare Management Engineers (HME)…
It seems like all we’re hearing now is layoffs, layoffs, layoffs. This article reports that Danaher, considered by many to be the best Lean company outside of Toyota (with its famed Danaher Business System), is laying off employees. Danaher Corp (DHR,…
The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare: Improving Patient Care Using Toyota Based Methods Below is a guest post from fellow author and Lean Healthcare practitioner, Naida Grunden. Her book (linked above) is an outstanding collection of principles and case examples…
Three airlines drop self-reporting safety program – USATODAY.com Dropping this program has got to be one of those “process indicators” of airline safety. I can’t believe that flying will be as safe without this program where pilots could report problems…
BBC NEWS | Health | Breathing life into resuscitation Thanks to my old boss, Mike, for sending this my way. Here’s an article (with pictures, better photos here) from the BBC about a revolutionary new design for hospital “crash carts”…
In this early Lean Blog Podcast episode, John Toussaint reflects on how culture change and collaborative care shaped ThedaCare’s healthcare transformation. Our guest for Episode #54 is John S. Toussaint, MD, the CEO emeritus of ThedaCare, and CEO of the…
