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The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare: Improving Patient Care Using Toyota Based Methods
Winner of a 2013 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award
America’s healthcare system needs to change. Not only does our country spend 16 percent of its gross domestic product on healthcare, but despite spending more than other industrialized countries, our general health lags behind. While we have plenty of data identifying where healthcare in America falls short, we’ve precious little practical, hands-on information about how to fix it.
In The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare, Naida Grunden provides a ingenious and optimistic look at how principles borrowed from industry can be applied to make healthcare safer, and in doing so, make it more effective and less costly. The book is a compilation of case studies from units in different hospitals around the Pittsburgh region that successfully applied industrial principles to the benefit of patients and the satisfaction of employees.
The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare is written for all healthcare stakeholders – from clinicians to insurers to employers to those who have the greatest stake in healthcare quality improvement, the patients.
About the
Naida Grunden has been a business and technical writer for over 25 years, specializing for the past six years in health and medical writing for the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative. She writes the PRHI Executive Summary newsletter, a publication she founded in 2001 (www.prhi.org). Her work has appeared in publications as varied as the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety and Air Line Pilot magazine.
Ms. Grunden received the 2006 Challenge Award from the American College of Clinical Engineering for her article on the VA wheelchair work in Biomedical Instrumentation and Technology magazine. Ms. Grunden completed her B.A. in English at California State University, East Bay, and her secondary English teaching credential at California State University, San Francisco. She lives in Bellingham, Washington. Visit her website at www.NaidaGrunden.com.
America’s healthcare system needs to change. Not only does our country spend 16 percent of its gross domestic product on healthcare, but despite spending more than other industrialized countries, our general health lags behind. While we have plenty of data identifying where healthcare in America falls short, we’ve precious little practical, hands-on information about how to fix it.
In The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare, Naida Grunden provides a ingenious and optimistic look at how principles borrowed from industry can be applied to make healthcare safer, and in doing so, make it more effective and less costly. The book is a compilation of case studies from units in different hospitals around the Pittsburgh region that successfully applied industrial principles to the benefit of patients and the satisfaction of employees.
The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare is written for all healthcare stakeholders – from clinicians to insurers to employers to those who have the greatest stake in healthcare quality improvement, the patients.
About the
Naida Grunden has been a business and technical writer for over 25 years, specializing for the past six years in health and medical writing for the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative. She writes the PRHI Executive Summary newsletter, a publication she founded in 2001 (www.prhi.org). Her work has appeared in publications as varied as the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety and Air Line Pilot magazine.
Ms. Grunden received the 2006 Challenge Award from the American College of Clinical Engineering for her article on the VA wheelchair work in Biomedical Instrumentation and Technology magazine. Ms. Grunden completed her B.A. in English at California State University, East Bay, and her secondary English teaching credential at California State University, San Francisco. She lives in Bellingham, Washington. Visit her website at www.NaidaGrunden.com.
- GenresHealth Care
224 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 12, 2008
I started this book after doing my Six Sigma course. The premise of the book (Published in 2008) is that a consortium of healthcare systems agreed to use the Toyota based (lean and Six Sigma) methods to improve healthcare in Pittsburgh using a threshold of 100%. It is truly a bit daring for anyone to choose a benchmark of 100%, but it was widely recognized that mistakes mean problems with and for patient care. The book includes several short case studies. The one ironic element that was discussed several times was the anticipated benefit of EMRs. Important take-aways: at times, the healthcare systems are mot rewarded for improving quality. They focused on the required culture change for quality improvement and "uncovering and resolving problems that are hiding in plain site." The interesting thing about this book is that the consortium realized that often problems and improvements reach across systems and from acute care into the community.
d-n-f
April 24, 2018Well, my professor just gave us the passage he wanted us to read for the final. Why didn't you just copy the pages and save me $30 then?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews