In one of the regular quality related workshop I have the privilege to run in my organization, we finish the day with a Lean simulation game to introduce some of the Lean concepts to the staff and hopefully make them intrigued to learn more about Lean. The game is based on similar simulation games run everywhere by Lean practitioners, and…
Not the typical title or image for a continuous improvement blog, but I believe courage is at the core of it. Courage is a quality that any keen continuous improvement professional should posses, or at least learn and grow with time.Courage is to name things as they are without sugar coating, calling a problem a problem, admitting that oneself, the…
The Quality Myth: Complying with best practices or standards, national or international, is only a start to build a foundation for a safe and standardized care. However, this is not how it’s being perceived or marketed among regulators and most healthcare organizations, let alone that meeting standards does NOT by any mean guarantee positive results or outcomes of care. Expert…
The Documentation Era This has a lot to do with miscommunication, but it deserves a category of its own due to its magnitude and the dysfunctional way it was built into daily clinical practices. Everyone knows how important eye contact is when communicating with others, and some of us were lucky enough to learn in Med School how important it’s…
During this year I had unusually many encounters with a number of healthcare providers, once or twice as the recipient of care, and others as a companion, both in an inpatient and ambulatory settings. These experiences have lead me to deeply realize that today’s healthcare is very dysfunctional and full of waste! I know what you are thinking, and I…
A great book by Jacob Stoller , a business and management consultant and speaker, which talks about how many organizations made the transformation to lean as a management system instead of the traditional business models followed everywhere. The book is a collection of interviews with CEOs who went through that experience, the struggles they faced, and the outcomes and successes they realized.…
Da Vinci is credited for saying that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It seems that our modern life is plagued with complexity and unnecessary clutter in all aspects of life, one of which is the art and science of presentations design and delivery. Presentation waste: Many of the seasoned experts in the art of presentation design like Garr Reynolds, Nancy…
A gem for any lean healthcare enthusiast or beginner. In this book, Co-author Dr. John Toussiant explains the lean transformation journey of Thedacare Health System in the US over seven years, the early beginnings, ups and downs, pains and triumphs, managing change, techniques and lessons learned, in an anecdotal and story like fashion. This book shows how could any healthcare…
During the recent IHI Middle East Forum in Doha, Dr. Don Berwick, Co-founder,President Emeritus and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, demonstrated to us the famous Red Bead Game, used by Dr.W. Edward Deming in his famous seminars in the late 90's to teach how management should support workers to identify system problems and errors (the red beads),…
In 2014, it was a great opportunity to apply lean concepts and tools in the hospital I worked in. One of the unique services the hospital offers is the manufacturing of prosthesis and orthosis (P&O) to patients who either need artificial limbs, or those who need some kind of orthopedic support for various conditions. The P&O Center just started to…