Value is defined as quality divided by cost. We are hearing a lot in Washington about improving value of our health care delivery but law makers don't have documented examples of this or an understanding of how value is created.
Last week there were forty people from all over North America representing thirteen health care delivery organizations committed to delivering better value to their customers. This was the first meeting of a deep dive learning network which has been created to prove that using lean principles we can redesign the delivery of care and remove large amounts of waste from healthcare. The network is being administered by a partnership between The Lean Enterprise Institute and The Thedacare Center for Healthcare Value. (See the last blog posting.) During these two days network members did Gemba walks throughout Thedacare. Gemba refers to the process of going to see where value is created for the customer, in this case at the bedside or in the clinic.
This is the first of many such meetings between this network group. At the end of the day all said they had learned a great deal at ThedaCare. Each organization now has a series of homework assignments they will work on and present at the next Gemba visit in a couple months. This process is specifically designed to encourage rapid experimentation amoung the network members with the goal to reduce cost and improve quality. If you are interested after reading this, see our new website createvalue.org
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