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Category Archives: Healthcare Transformation

Applying Lean Principles to Board Work

Posted on by CATALYSIS

St. Charles Health System’s embrace of lean practices led to a new culture and revitalized governance model Health care is ripe for change. The evidence is all around us. A majority of healthcare leaders recently surveyed said hospitals and health systems are most in need of disruptive innovation (New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst, February 16, […]

Sustained Performance Improvement Requires Culture of Excellence

Posted on by CATALYSIS

By using a systematic approach to build a culture of continuous improvement and implement Lean principles, health systems can dramatically boost operational performance in quality, safety, and other domains. This article highlights work done by two Catalysis Healthcare Value Network members:  Salem Health and St. Mary’s General Hospital. Interviewed for this article: Debbie Goodwin, RN, […]

Webinar – Patient-Centered Strategy: A Learning System for Better Care

Managing vision and purpose with strategic agility has never been more important for healthcare leaders in a turbulent and transforming industry. We know that our old mental models and systems for strategic planning are insufficient; yet in our early attempts to translate the lean-based system of hoshin planning into strategy deployment, the essence of strategy […]

Why Process Is U.S. Health Care’s Biggest Problem

by John S. Toussaint & Kathryn Correia MARCH 19, 2018   Executive Summary A lot of money has been spent on information technology in health care with little to show for it. When it comes to change, the technology is the easiest part. Most health systems in America have or are implementing the EHR. And the vendor processes for […]

The Time for Healthcare Leaders to Implement Lean Is Now – Stat!

Posted on by Helen Zak

Originally posted at Lean.org by Helen Zak December 7, 2017 “A bad system will beat a good person every time.” These sage words from W. Edwards Deming, sum up what many healthcare leaders face on a daily basis: bad systems working directly against the ability to deliver quality outcomes for patients. For decades, industry has […]

Sustaining a Lean Transformation

Posted on by Kim Barnas

Healthcare organizations are radically changing the way they work. They have little choice in the face of declining reimbursements, increased emphasis on value-based payments, consolidation of competitors and the uncertain future of the national healthcare system. In response, many have pursued Lean, which drove initial improvements in their organizations and has benefitted patients (improved quality […]

Atrius Health Changed Their Thinking and Created Value for the Patient

Posted on by CATALYSIS

Ted Toussaint, a healthcare innovation strategist, and Sarah Steinberg, from Atrius Health, discuss innovative work that they led at Atrius, using a variety of modern product development and innovation methods, including lean, lean start up, design thinking, and more to create new “Care in Place” model for home-based patient care that helps reduce trips to […]

A Culture of Improvement at Cleveland Clinic

I had the opportunity to attend a recent meeting at the Cleveland Clinic sponsored by the Catalysis Healthcare Value Network. This was my second exposure to the continuous improvement work at Cleveland Clinic, the first being a session focused on the process improvement in their finance department, two years ago. A lot has changed in […]

What the CVS-Aetna Deal Means for the Delivery of U.S. Health Care

by John Toussaint, MD December 5, 2017 The landscape for the delivery of health care in the United States is changing, but the traditional care-delivery players are not the change agents. The recent announcement of CVS’s $69 billion deal to acquire Aetna brings an insurer together with a large network of primary care providers: CVS has built […]

Get Innovative: A Message for Hospitals and Healthcare Systems

During my tenure as a hospital CEO, one hurdle often seemed insurmountable: getting leaders and staff across the organization to think like innovators. Many leaders suffer from behavioral tendencies and management styles that don’t naturally allow for innovative thinking. Decades of adhering to regulations, organizational procedures and healthcare mandates hinder the ability (or desire) to […]