Dr. Leonard Berry at Texas A & M University “embedded” himself within ThedaCare one year ago. He wanted to deeply understand the inner workings of a lean healthcare organization. After this experience, he asked me if I would help him to document what lean in healthcare is. The result was this article, “The Promise of […]
It’s been a long time coming but we finally have a report with simple to understand performance metrics rating many of Wisconsin’s medical groups. Much like we compare automobiles and appliances we can now compare medical providers. This report compares several important healthcare measures across the main medical groups in Wisconsin. Not surprisingly ThedaCare tops […]
Health Partners is a fully integrated health system which includes a 1.2 million member health plan, a large multi-specialty physician group and several hospitals. For the last two years they have been measuring physician group performance in what they call “taking the triple aim to the next level.” Health Partners leaders have developed a model […]
Professor Len Berry from Texas A and M spent the entire fall semester of 2011 embedding himself in three Wisconsin healthcare delivery organizations: Gundersen Lutheran, ThedaCare and Bellin. A few years prior to that he had embedded himself in the Mayo Clinic. On Tuesday, he facilitated a panel discussion with the 4 CEOs from these […]
“Fortunately, although the barriers to payment reform can seem daunting, they can be overcome. A new report from CHQPR – Ten Barriers to Healthcare Payment Reform and How to Overcome Them – describes many of the biggest barriers that physicians, hospitals, health plans, employers, and policy-makers are facing in implementing payment reforms, along with strategies for solving […]
Gopesh Anand and Dilip Chhajed, are professors of business administration at Illinois. “The research, co-written with Luis Delfin, a former graduate student, advances three arguments on how employees’ commitment to continuous improvement in the workplace can be enhanced: The day-to-day work environment needs to be perceived by employees as autonomous. As continuous improvement involves making […]
The lean community knows the best way to derail continuous improvement is to remove waste from a process and lay someone off. Unfortunately, this action is typical in industry and healthcare. It’s easy to lay people off and get short term financial gains. The long term consequences,however, are devastating. Scripps and ThedaCare have had this […]
The Ministry of Health in Saskatchewan has had a big vision for years: To make an entire provincial healthcare system produce 100% reliable results for citizens. Leaders carefully evaluated the approaches to achieving this goal and decided the lean operating system was the way to make it actually happen. They have been on the journey […]
The Massachusetts Quality Contract has received a lot of attention. Similar programs in Illinois and Minnesota are ongoing as well. What are these contracts and what is their purpose? The following is an excerpt from a recent paper produced by BDC Advisors, a consulting firm: “These contracts now cover approximately 500,000 lives-approximately 50% of Blue […]
Much has been written about Collaborative Care recently. This review by AHRQ continues to show this is one of the true break through innovations in healthcare today. The following summary from AHRQ: “Getting Started with This Innovation” Apply model to local environment: While it is imperative that those adopting this model use a process redesign methodology […]
