1st Edition
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 Author:
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.
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. Why it matters
Chapter 2. Eliminating infection
Chapter 3. Moving closer to the patient
Chapter 4. Making handoffs safer
Chapter 5. Reducing medication errors
Chapter 6. Eliminating the wait
Chapter 7. Applying best practices
Chapter 8. Transforming a medical specialty
Glossary
Index
About the Author
Biography
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.
In one of our foremost healthcare classics, Naida Grunden lays out a detailed but brief story of Pittsburgh's healthcare success stories. They were among the very first healthcare institutions to successfully migrate Toyota production methods into a medical environment. Undoubtedly the practices have changed nearly 10 years post-implementation, and we have added new priorities in the IT area, but the starting point is essential reading.
—Patricia E. Moody, FORTUNE magazine "Pioneering Woman in Mfg", IndustryWeek IdeaXchange XpertThis book reports how managers— without more money or federal action—can use Toyota management principles to create an environment where it is difficult to make a mistake and people can take joy in work and deliver better and better patient care.
—Clare Crawford-Mason, co-author, The Nun and the Bureaucrat: How They Found an Unlikely Cure for America’s Sick Hospitals and Thinking About Quality: Progress, Wisdom and the Deming Philosophy... chock full of pearls, useful tools, and inspiring stories of people and organizations who made quality improvement concepts and principles spring to life.
—Robert M. Wachter, MD, Professor and Associate Chairman, Department of Medicine University of California, San Francisco, Chief of the Medical Service, UCSF Medical Center Editor, AHRQ WebM&M and Patient Safety Network
At a time when we are overwhelmed by the staggering evidence that health care systems that we depend on often fail us, here is a book that captures the power of real transformation.
—Frank Christopher, PBS producer of the series Remaking American MedicineI love this book! Like the Toyota Production System on which these case study improvements were founded, it is clear, concise and visual…I can’t imagine a reader not being inspired to run out and find similar problems to tackle. I wish every reader the wherewithal to make equal progress!
—Cindy Jimmerson, President, Lean Healthcare West, author, A3 Problem Solving for Healthcare: A Practical Method for Eliminating Waste
What exactly is workflow re-design? Can it really make the health care experience safer and more effective, efficient, and rewarding for patients and providers? Ms. Grunden answers these questions through dozens of fascinating examples which really happened in Pittsburgh’s hospitals and are replicable virtually anywhere.
—Christopher Guadagnino, Managing Editor, Physician’s News Digest
