Lean Healthcare West

What is Lean for Healthcare?

Lean is a term adapted in the mid-80s by the US manufacturing industry in reference to improving production capacity and reducing waste in work processes, specifically modeled after the concepts and practices of the Toyota Motor Company.

As an extension of manufacturing's success with these management principles, other industries (including healthcare) have made adaptations of the Toyota Production System (TPS) to establish consistent and reliable work processes that support excellent delivery of services that result in:

increased capacity for work
decreased cost of operations
improved worker and client satisfaction
leadership strength

Translated for healthcare that means that we can incorporate continuous improvement into the daily activities of work at every level of the organization to optimize the science, technology and compassion that comprises healthcare today.

The practical and affordable methods that have made Toyota the unquestionable leader of auto manufacturing are available to every organization that is dedicated to similar performance and results.

Lean Healthcare West is a group of healthcare professionals who have acquired Lean expertise through research and application. We offer a unique perspective from decades of healthcare practice, refocused with fresh Lean vision.

LHW's simplified implementation of TPS concepts and methods brings immediate lean advantages to any healthcare organization.

Our program is based on the findings of research funded by the National Science Foundation (2001-2004), conducted by Cindy Jimmerson( Lean Healthcare West) and Durward Sobek ( Montana State University, College of Engineering).

From this research the reVIEW© Course was developed and combines a basic tenet of TPS/Lean, that improvements must be made by the people who do the work, introduced in a classroom format familiar to how healthcare workers learn.

As other clinical certification programs (ie ACLS, ATLS, etc) are taught internally and ongoing in hospitals, so can the reVIEW© Course be taught to address improving the delivery of clinical care.

In these tenuous times can we afford to not optimize our professional and business practices?

The reVIEW© Course introduces the powerful principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS), the background of our system of education and implementation of Lean in healthcare. By applying TPS principles and practices (Value Stream Mapping and A3 problem solving) the participants will look at their work differently to identify potential savings of time, resources, and the elimination of errors. The following objectives can be met with the skills learned in the reVIEW© Course.

Create a more defect-free product or service
Reduce/eliminate waste and increase efficiency
Increase patient and employee satisfaction
Reduce costs
Increase patient safety
Enhance leadership and communication skills

To date our unique implementation of introductory Lean concepts and methods has been successful in more than 45 hospitals, long term care facilities and physician professional practices.

Experience

Our facilitators have applied their experience and these principles to every department of the healthcare organization. The concepts and methods are easy to learn and easy to teach in the lean journey toward Ideal service.

The reVIEW© program offers instructor/trainer education to assist you in developing an internal lean training team at your facility. Our goal is to assist you to create a high quality, affordable healthcare system by eliminating waste and increasing patient safety and worker satisfaction.

Our organization strongly endorses the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) 100,000 Lives Campaign and have demonstrated that our training program is a powerful method for any organization to use toward that noble effort.

Contact Lean Healthcare West