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Category Archives: Healthcare Transformation

Closing The Gateway From Surgery To Persistent Opioid Use

Posted on by CATALYSIS

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 […]

The Problem with Plan-Do-Study-Adjust Cycles

Posted on by CATALYSIS

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 […]

Assessing the Relationship of the Human Resource, Finance, and Information Technology Functions on Reported Performance in Hospitals Using the Lean Management System

Posted on by CATALYSIS

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. […]

Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

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 […]

Kim Barnas on Operational Excellence

Posted on by CATALYSIS

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 […]

Creating a Culture of Excellence – How healthcare leaders can build and sustain continuous improvement

Posted on by CATALYSIS

Building and sustaining continuous improvement – global lessons from the front line. At a time when healthcare faces growing challenges globally, KPMG International set out to learn how leading healthcare organizations around the world are successfully building and sustaining a culture of continuous improvement. This report includes interviews with Catalysis and twenty healthcare leaders that represent […]

Grey Dube, Another Lean Healthcare CEO from South Africa

Posted on by CATALYSIS

Mark Granabn’s Lean Blog Episode #338 is Mr. Grey Dube, the Chief Executive Officer at Leratong Hospital. He has over 40 years’ experience in the public service, including time as CEO at the hospital since 2005. Leratong Hospital is an 855 bedded regional hospital with over 1700 staff members, located in Mogale City, Krugersdorp, South Africa (just […]

Reducing Emergency Department Length of Stay

Posted on by CATALYSIS

“Chaos in the emergency department is common. How to fix it is not always clear. Mary P. Mercer, MD, MPH, from the University of California, San Francisco, discusses how they successfully fixed their long dwell times at the emergency department at San Francisco General Hospital. Their solution was to create a fast-track unit that managed low-acuity […]