Accelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and Innovation

by Paul E. Plsek

Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) was one of the first health care organizations to implement Lean and its methodologies. Other organizations have followed VMMC’s lead, but this world class organization still leads in the utilization of innovative Lean tools.

Accelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and The Virginia Mason Experience describes how VMMC has systematically integrated innovative structures, methods, and cultural practices into its implementation of Lean. Describing how your organization can create a strategy and build a culture of innovation and learning, it supplies concrete examples that show―not just conceptually, but through VMMC's actual experiences―how Lean and innovation can work hand-in-hand to incrementally improve and radically transform your value streams.

Explaining how to use the voices and experiences of patients and their families to drive improvement and innovation in new directions, the book supplies a clear understanding of how Lean can help you achieve your goals in today’s increasingly demanding marketplace.

Genres: Business

216 pages, Hardcover

First published October 7, 2013

Reviews

[Larry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is purportedly about the role innovation plays -- or should play -- in accelerating improvements in health care, using a particular medical center as a basis for this discussion. Now, please bear with me, as I present a few facts about my background, as they will help explain my reaction to this book. (1) I have worked in health care. (2) I had a career in human resource management and organizational development. (3) I have been a patient for 25 years at the medical center highlighted in this book. (4) My spouse has been a medical provider at the same medical center for even longer. (5) My wife has worked directly with several people mentioned in the book. (6) I know personally some of the medical center leaders mentioned often in the book. And despite all that, there were several occasions when I had no idea what the author was talking about. Moreover, I was actually caught by surprise when he would finally present clear and complete information. This is not a book about what is needed and how to get it. This is a consultant's résumé with a lengthy job interview response attached. I have read other material about the health care production system mentioned in this book, but without the obfuscation and avalanche of jargon, name dropping, and embellishments this one contains. There is SOME good material, but you'll need a pickaxe to mine it.