The Toyota Way to Healthcare Excellence: Increase Efficiency and Improve Quality with Lean

Citation

(2008), "The Toyota Way to Healthcare Excellence: Increase Efficiency and Improve Quality with Lean", Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 21 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhs.2008.21121dae.001

The Toyota Way to Healthcare Excellence: Increase Efficiency and Improve Quality with Lean

Article Type: Recent publication From: Leadership in Health Services, Volume 21, Issue 4

Please note that unless expressly stated, these are not reviews of titles given. They are descriptions of the books, based on information provided by the publishers.

John Black with David MillerACHE Management Series Book, Co PublisherMay, 2008ISBN: 1-56793-293-2ISBN 13: 978-1-56793-293-5

Keywords: Leadership strategy, Healthcare performance improvement, Change management processes

The Toyota Production System model, or Lean, is not new. It has been successfully used in manufacturing companies for decades – and is now making dramatic improvements in healthcare institutions as well. This straightforward guide explains what Lean is, how it works, and how to implement the strategy at your organization.

What do the production of cars and the care of patients have in common? In both cases, the goal is to deliver high-quality, error-free results. Lean is a proven strategy for providing safe, hassle-free, and cost-effective care.

Learn from success stories from healthcare organizations

Real-life examples illustrate how well Lean works. These accounts will help you gain a sense of what’s involved in implementing Lean in healthcare. How do you get an organization to adopt Lean as its improvement strategy? How do you bring people on board? How do you put the Lean infrastructure in place? How do you even start? These stories will answer your questions about applying Lean, and perhaps most important, convey the remarkable results you can expect.

Contents include:

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  An Open Letter to Healthcare Leaders.

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  Eliminating Waste Will Transform American Healthcare.

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  A Brief History of Lean.

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  The “Lean House” and Model Lines.

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  Your Lean Action Plan.

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  Building Kaizen Leaders.

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  Flow in a Healthcare Environment.

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  Kanban and the Supply Chain.

Case examples:

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  Lean Comes to Virginia Mason Medical Center.

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  Virginia Mason Medical Center Case Studies.

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  Lean Comes to Park Nicollet Health Services.

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  Park Nicollet Health Services Case Studies.