Tag: Kaizen

I was at an organization recently where one of the relatively senior leaders kept using a curious phrase that made my ears perk up. The senior executives were continually being referred to as "the decision makers." Why can't everybody be a decision maker?

In today's post, I write about how Kaizen starts with you. I share some examples of "personal Kaizen," including the way I've streamlined my call scheduling process, for my benefit and for others.

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:

During the class, there was a case study discussion about a hospital that was trying to solve the problem of nurses not always scanning patient bar codes and medications 100% of the time. In the discussion, I was disappointed that an attendee fell back on saying...

This post looks back at a podcast that I did a few years ago with Joe Swartz, talking about how he helped introduce Kaizen at Franciscan St. Francis Health and how they’ve built that culture.

In this post, I describe an idea (or a suggestion?) that led to a Kaizen improvement through Catalysis (formerly known as the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value).

This post will point you to a few things you might be interested in: a free webinar this Thursday, some thoughts on Kaizen and "low-hanging fruit," and a summary of the book Practicing Lean.

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?

Mischelle McMillin, from Franciscan St. Francis Health, shares “dos and don’ts” for leaders going out to the “gemba” (the workplace). What is “the riddler” and why should you avoid being one in your efforts to create a culture of continuous improvement?

Registration is now open for our “Kaizen Live!” event, where you can visit Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis to see what a “culture of continuous improvement” is like in a way that will help you in creating the same for your organization.

I continue sharing documents from the Don Ephlin library archive. What did Ford and the UAW learn when they visited Japan in 1981? Many of the things that made Japanese industry successful are the same things that make organizations successful with Lean today, including in healthcare.

Are there parallels between medicine and organizations when we look at the tension between heroism and the sometimes boring work of preventing problems and improving things? I comment on an article by Dr. Atul Gawande…