The European Shingo Conference will be held November 20-21, 2019 in Regensburg, Germany. This is a great opportunity to learn from leaders and business transformation experts in keynote sessions, then participate in smaller break-out sessions where you can join the discussion. The event features speakers from world-class organizations, networking opportunities, a site tour, and hands-on […]
Cleveland Clinic will host an interactive learning event on the Cleveland Clinic Improvement Model December 9-11, 2019. The learning objectives of this event are: Identify the key components of a successful tiered huddle system to create their own tiered huddle that engages caregivers in identifying and solving problems Describe how creating a system for problem […]
Dr. John Toussaint, executive chairman of Catalysis Inc., talks with Aravind at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business about lean transformation in healthcare. Listen to podcast
Fifty million Americans have surgery each year. Approximately 2 million of these surgical patients will develop persistent opioid use (meaning they continue to use opioids 90–180 days after surgery). For far too many people, surgery is a critical gateway to the tragedy of opioid addiction. As a practicing anesthesiologist, I’ve been administering opioids for 20 years to […]
Traditional healthcare management needs an overhaul. Medical errors have become a norm and costs continue to escalate. A new management philosophy is emerging at a few NHS Trusts. Recent research has shown that operational excellence, the management approach described in this article, leads to improved patient cost and quality outcomes. However, it requires healthcare leaders […]
Abstract: It is well known that health-care performance is highly variable and not reliable. To address this issue, a number of health-care leaders have been experimenting with operational methods derived from non–health-care industries. Leaders at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford Children’s Hospital at Stanford, and ThedaCare have been studying and applying principles from consistently high-performing […]
Quality improvement (QI) methods have been introduced to healthcare to support the delivery of care that is safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and cost effective. Of the many QI tools and methods, the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is one of the few that focuses on the crux of change, the translation of ideas and intentions into […]
Given pressures to control costs and improve quality of care, one of the most prevalent transformational performance improvement approaches in health care is Lean management. However, the roles of support functions such as human resource (HR), finance, and information technology (IT) in Lean management and the relationships of these support functions with performance are unknown. […]
A number of health systems have scored impressive gains in improving outcomes and patient satisfaction and lower costs by applying the Toyota Production System (TPS) to redesign “lean” clinical and administrative processes, eliminating waste and boosting quality. But in all too many cases, when the leader who championed TPS left his or her organization, these efforts began […]
Catalysis CEO, Kim Barnas, spoke with a writer for a healthcare magazine in Germany about what Operational Excellence means. The following is the transcript of that discussion. Question 1 Many people would claim they have a general understanding of the terms quality improvement and operational excellence in healthcare, but when it comes to specifying the […]
