1st Edition

Lean Leadership for Healthcare Approaches to Lean Transformation

By Ronald Bercaw Copyright 2013
    254 Pages 51 B/W Illustrations
    by Productivity Press

    256 Pages
    by Productivity Press

    Healthcare organizations that have already applied Lean thinking to their processes, with the diligence of effective management and strong leadership support, are now realizing the benefits of their efforts. And, many of those benefits surpass what was thought possible just a few years ago. To be successful, these organizations had to provide the leadership to arrive at their future state.

    Written by a Shingo Prize-winning author and Lean sensei, Lean Leadership for Healthcare: Approaches to Lean Transformation explains how to apply Lean improvement to both clinical and non-clinical processes. It presents valuable lessons learned by the author over the years of leading improvements in this complex industry and lays out a clear roadmap for initiating your Lean improvements.

    Illustrating the leadership behaviors required to achieve sustainable success, the book is ideal for leaders in the healthcare industry looking to initiate Lean improvements to clinical and non-clinical processes. It reviews the fundamentals of Lean and explains how to link a strategy of continuous improvement to corporate strategy to achieve operational excellence. It also describes how to mitigate the risk of failure when undergoing large-scale corporate change—including what can go wrong and how to prevent these failures.

    The book includes case studies that share the time-tested insights of healthcare team members and leaders. It outlines a management system for sustaining your Lean improvements and provides the Lean leadership approaches, thoughts, and visual tools you’ll need to guide your organization along the path toward world-class healthcare performance.

    Lean at a Glance
    What Is Lean Healthcare?
    Value-Added
    Non Value-Added
    First Theme of Lean Improvement: Continuous Improvement
    Second Theme of Lean Improvement: Respect for All People
    Seven Wastes
         Overproduction
         Waiting
         Overprocessing
         Inventory
         Motion
         Defects
         Transportation
    Two Additional Wastes
         Unused Human Capital
         Waste of Organizational Design
    Principles of Improvement
         Flow
         Pull
         Defect-Free
         Visual Management
         Kaizen
    Lean Healthcare Defined
    Summary: Key Points from Chapter 1

    Creating and Deploying a Lean Strategy
    Creating a Culture of Improvement
    Seven-Phase Policy Deployment Process
         Step 1: Establish the Organizational Vision
         Step 2: Develop Three- to Five-Year Breakthrough Objectives
              True North Measures
         Step 3: Develop the Annual Breakthrough Objectives and Improvement Priorities
             Identify Top-Level Improvement Priorities
              Selecting the Top-Level Improvement Priorities
         Step 4: Deploy the Improvement Priorities
         Step 5: Implement the Improvement Priorities
              Use a Value Stream Approach to Improvement
              Lean Tools
              Kaizen
         Step 6: Monthly Review
         Step 7: Annual Review
    Enablers of Hoshin Kanri
    World-Class Targets for Improvement
    Summary: Key Points from Chapter 2

    Leading Change—The Transformation Roadmap—Phase 1:"Get Ready"
    Beginning the Journey
    Phase I: Preparing to Transform (Get Ready)—Building the Infrastructure
         Selecting Your Change Agent
         Get Informed
         Get Help
         Establish a Steering Committee
         Train Your Internal Experts
         Develop and Deploy a Communication Campaign
    Summary: Key Points from Chapter 3

    The Transformation Roadmap—Phase 2—The Acceleration Phase (Improve, Sustain, and Spread)
    Delivering on Preparation Efforts
         Step 1: Ensure You Have Selected the Right Value Streams on Which to Focus
         Step 2: Establish Value Stream Governance and Set Up Your Value Stream Performance System
         Step 3: Utilize A-3 Thinking to Realize Improvement
         Step 4: Sustain the Improvements and Manage Visually
              5S: A Beginning Place for Visual Management of Process
              Using Visual Management for Process Control
              Using Visual Management for Improving Results: Managing for Daily Improvement
              Control Systems for Visual Management
              Peer Task Audits (Kamishibai)
         Step 5: Capture the Savings
         Step 6: Support Your Change with Ongoing Training and Coaching
         Lean Coaching
         Step 7: Spread Lean Thinking across the Organization
         Replication of Artifacts, Products, Solutions, and Process
         Adding Additional Value Streams
    Summary: Key Points from Chapter 4

    The Transformation Road Map—Phase 3: Make Organizational Improvement the "New" Culture
    Changing to the New Organizational Structure
    Lean Capacity Building
    Lean Information Technology
    Lean Finance
    Lean Human Resources
    Lean Supply Chain
    Lean Project Management, Lean Construction, and Lean New Service Introduction
    Lean Leadership Processes
    Medical Leadership Processes
    Taking Lean beyond Your Four Walls
    Summary: Key Points from Chapter 5

    Leadership Behaviors and Actions for Success
    Leading by Example
    Participate
    Learn the Tools
         Rotate Teaching of the Core Lean Tools
         Book of the Month Club
         Become a Lean Facilitator
    Walk the Value Streams
    Commit the Resources to Be Successful
         Facilitation
              Team Resources
              Middle Management Expectations
              Supplies
              External Resources
    Hold People Accountable
    Address Antibodies
    Redeployment versus Unemployment
    Monitor and Demand Results
    Believe
    Summary: Key Points from Chapter 6

    Mitigating Transformation Risk and Avoiding Common Mistakes
    Being Successful and Avoiding Failure
    Don’t Waste the First Six to Nine Months
    Managing the Breadth and Depth of the Change
    Leadership, Management, Support Staff, and Medical Staff Engagement
         Inability to Operate Two Systems
    Common Errors to Organizational Change Efforts
    Summary: Key Points from Chapter 7

    Closing Thoughts


    Glossary of Lean Terms

    Biography

    Ronald Bercaw