Reflections on the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit 2010

The audience  was keen  to learn lean healthcare. With 500 billion dollars in spending cuts now legislated by the federal government healthcare leaders are realizing that status quo isn’t possible.

Presentations by Group Health of Puget Sound, ThedaCare, University of Michigan, Hotel-Dieu Grace in Windsor Canada, Iowa Health System and Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids all made it quite clear lean works in healthcare to significantly reduce cost while improving quality.

The summit included the release of our book "On the Mend" (available on Amazon or at lean.org) which was met with enthusiasm as conference attendees explained that this book, written in story format with understandable English, would help them explain lean healthcare to staff and doctors unfamiliar with the principles and tools.

Most attendees said they would be back next year and they planned to bring their friends and colleagues. Comments included “this was a great conference because it allowed us to listen and talk to the real practitioners of lean healthcare”.

The development of the Healthcare Value Leaders Network ( www.hcvl.org ) was seen as a value added to many.  Healthcare leaders can sign up to attend  the next meeting of those interested in joining one of the Healthcare Value Leaders networks  which will be September 13 and 14 in Boston. We will post the details on the Healthcare Value Leaders Network site as well as this site as soon as they are available.

Finally, it was clear from most everyone I talked to that the real health reform is going to be accomplished by the care deliverers not the government.  With an unsustainable rate of cost growth and quality that is average at best, the burning platform is now upon us.  Fortunately, we have reason to be optimistic that all of our organizations can be "On the Mend" now that we have discovered the improvement methodology called lean healthcare.