This is the final blog in a four-part series focused on sustaining lean transformation in healthcare organizations. To read the previous blog posts in the series, please follow the links below: Blog #1 Establishing and Sustaining a Lean Management System Blog #2 Maintaining Forward Movement Blog #3 Four Core Elements to Implement a Sustainable Lean […]
This is the third blog in a four-part series focused on sustaining lean transformation in healthcare organizations. To read the previous blog posts in the series, please follow the links below: Blog #1 Establishing and Sustaining a Lean Management System Blog #2 Maintaining Forward Movement The critical step for any leader interested in Lean is […]
This is the second blog in a four-part series focused on sustaining lean transformation in healthcare organizations. To read the previous blog post in the series, please follow the link below: Blog #1 Establishing and Sustaining a Lean Management System American educator and author, Reed B. Markham, once said, “If you are standing still, you […]
This is the first blog in a four-part series focused on sustaining lean transformation in healthcare organizations. In my decades of experience applying Lean thinking to improve how hospitals function and collaborating with hundreds of healthcare leaders to help implement system-wide Lean healthcare initiatives, I’ve come to understand one thing: The challenge is not about […]
Recently, I have had several leaders talk with me about how executives connect to the lean management system. This gap in understanding gave me pause and created an opportunity to think about how we are presenting systems in our coaching and teaching. I feel it is important to speak more directly about how the executive […]
This year has been an eventful one for my family. We had the regular COVID restrictions and wished we could all be together celebrating life’s many milestones. This year also brought unanticipated opportunities of spending time with loved ones as inpatients (non-COVID) in several different hospitals. This is the kind of Gemba you never want […]
Berkshire Healthcare Trust is a large mental health and homecare trust in the United Kingdom. They provide services at over 150 sites in the Berkshire area including hospitals, clinics, and community sites. This community in the UK was hit by COVID much the same as all of us. However, their response has been exceptional, and […]
Over the past year, all of our teams have been working through this pandemic demonstrating extraordinary commitment of both physical and emotional energy. Considering these experiences led me to wonder about the resilience of our people/workforce. I am wondering – how are we as people going to come through this crisis? I have talked with […]
If you encourage staff to identify defects, you better have a process to solve them. Often the first step is to bring those defects forward to a huddle. In the book Beyond Heroes, we recommend that this conversation occurs at a huddle board (visual management) with your staff. During this huddle, you identify and discuss […]
I’ve visited a number of organizations and one of the recurring problems I’ve seen is lack of an effective prioritization process. I think this is paramount. In this world of competing priorities and regulation, we must have a way to focus on the “vital few,” demonstrate and stabilize the improvement, and move on to the […]
