The Healthcare Value Network members visited the University of Michigan Medical Center the end of July. We saw good evidence of the application of the lean methodology in patient care. We also learned how they are changing medical education to instill continuous improvement principles and practices.
A chief resident who is trained as a lean leader? Yes, that actually is happening only one place in the country and that's in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dr. Jack Billi has been developing improvement leaders at the University of Michigan Medical School for years (see PowerPoint file at the end of this blog).
The beauty of what U of M is doing is to take the best of the engineering school, which has included teachers such as John Shook and Jeff Liker, and integrate this thinking with medical school leaders like Jack Billi. The result is an educational experience unlike any other for medical students and residents. When they leave Michigan they have both clinical skills and improvement skills which give them a big advantage in today's world of emphasizing both cost and quality in medical care.
As if this wasn't enough for an academic medical center to be focusing on, U of M is now taking the lean approach to more than 100 private medical clinics around the state with the Michigan medical home demonstration. This is sponsored by Michigan Blue Cross a leader in innovation on cost and quality.
No doubt we will be learning a lot from the work at Michigan. The leaders there have taken their role seriously in transforming American Healthcare. Let's hope other academic medical centers will follow suit, transforming American healthcare starts with transforming how we educate the future healthcare leaders.
Michigan teaching
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