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Author Archives: John Toussaint

Blog #9 Organizational Transformation:People:Culture

This is the final segment in a nine post series on the core components of organizational transformation using lean.The topic is part of the rubric of People and is about organizational culture.   Corporate culture is difficult to define because it is so confusing most people steer away from writing about it. By culture I mean to […]

Obama May Nominate Dr. Don Berwick to Head CMS

Don Berwick has been working his entire career to improve health care. Now, he may have his best chance yet. Yesterday, several news sources announced that President Obama would nominate Don Berwick to be the next CMS director. This follows almost 4 years of the agency’s lead position being vacant. With the recent passage of the health […]

HBR publishes article by Sachin Jain and John Toussaint

HBR published an article on “industrial metaphor” in healthcare and how physicians respond to this. This article was published on the HBR blog and is focused on the pitfalls of implementing lean in healthcare. The words are important and the article helps to define how to use the words to achieve an effective lean implementation […]

WSJ article targets mistakes in healthcare

St. Mary’s in Madison has undergone a massive nursing training program related to the tragic death of a teenage OB patient.Will what they have done make a difference to prevent other accidents?   I know the leaders and doctors at St. Marys in Madison.They are dedicated,competent,caring people and belong to a great overarching organization lead […]

Washington could take a lesson from the Swedes

It’s been very encouraging to see results in U.K. and Sweden confirming lean in healthcare works all over the world. I have spent the last few days in Sweden and visited St. Gorans hospital in Stockholm and the Lund University Hospital Lean Healthcare conference where I gave an address. I can say that there are committed […]

Organization Transformation Blog # 7 Process:Standard Work

This 7th blog on organizational transformation again is under the rubric of process, standard work, and it is a key part of the Methodology of lean. Standard work is the codified work sequence that comes about as a result of improvement activity. When a care process is changed the staff and physicians delivering that care act differently […]

Lucian Leape challenges medical educators

This paper titled, Unmet Needs, outlines a number of fundamental flaws in the present medical education system.   I have commented in presentations,in articles,and now in a book the Lean enterprise Institute will publish in June that the shame and blame culture instilled in our medical schools is our biggest barrier to patient care improvement. This paper by […]

Kathryn Correia President Of Thedacare Hospitals in O’Neill event

Other leaders who will be presenting at this event include Paul O’Neill,Dr. Richard Shannon and Steven Spear. I attended this event last fall and found it quite provocative. Healthcare leaders looking to change themselves and their organizations using lean should attend. Executive Strategy Seminar2 Value_Capture_Exec_Strategy_Seminar

Blog #6 Organizational Transformation

This is the 6th blog in my series on organizational transformation. We have organized these blogs into three categories based on the important components of Purpose, Process, and People. We are still exploring the category of process and this week are focused on kaizen. Kaizen is from the Japanese symbols meaning “change” and “good.” It […]