John Black and Associates LLC
 

The Toyota Way to Healthcare Excellence: Increase Efficiency and Improve Quality with Lean

 

John Black with David Miller

The Toyota Production System model, or Lean, is not new. It has been successfully used in manufacturing companies for decades—and is now making dramatic improvements in healthcare institutions as well. This straightforward guide explains what Lean is, how it works, and how to implement the strategy at your organization.

What do the production of cars and the care of patients have in common? In both cases, the goal is to deliver high-quality, error-free results. Lean is a proven strategy for providing safe, hassle-free, and cost-effective care.

Publisher: Health Administration Press (HAP)
To purchase or request an exam copy, contact HAP

Learn from success stories from healthcare organizations
Real-life examples illustrate how well Lean works. These accounts will help you gain a sense of what’s involved in implementing Lean in healthcare. How do you get an organization to adopt Lean as its improvement strategy? How do you bring people on board? How do you put the Lean infrastructure in place? How do you even start? These stories will answer your questions about applying Lean, and perhaps most important, convey the remarkable results you can expect.

Reviews

“Since Virginia Mason started on its Lean journey, we’ve conducted nearly 500 Rapid Process Improvement Workshops. Almost every one of them has led to significant improvements—at least a 50 percent reduction in time, space, or the need for other resources. In areas of major focus, we’ve seen defects go to nearly zero. We’ve experienced improvements in hospital length of stay, wait times to see a doctor, face-to-face time for patients with their physicians, time to get lab results, and even time to get the bill sent out. Lean works!”

—Dr. Gary Kaplan, CEO, Virginia Mason Medical Center (from the Foreword)

© 2008 John Black and Associates LLC