Univ Michigan Hospital Adopts Toyota Methods
Posted on July 22, 2006 Comments (3)
U-M hospital takes page from Toyota by Sharon Terlep. This continues the trend (trend rather than fad because I like that it is happening 
) of hospitals adopting lean management methods.
This article gets some of the ideas down but I think presents them in a fairly confusing way. So take this for what it is a report on one more hospital trying these ideas. Then read the the many available resources to learn about one-piece flow, poka-yoke, eliminating waste, identifying errors, kaizen… rather than relying on this article. The purspose of this article is just to report on the new methods being used at the hospital not provide a detailed report on exactly how the new methods actually work – that would take a much longer form of presentation than a short newspaper article.
Related:
- Lean Health Care and other medical management improvement posts
- PBS Documentary: Improving Hospitals
- Going Lean in Health Care
3 Responses to “Univ Michigan Hospital Adopts Toyota Methods”
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July 22nd, 2006 @ 11:02 am
They are hardly "one of the first" but that's nit picking. What matters is that they are doing it!
July 22nd, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
True, I actual had a sentence saying that in my post but then deleted it
September 17th, 2006 @ 5:35 pm
[...] Squeezing the fat from health care by Hanah Cho is another article on lean healthcare. This one provides a better view of the overall picture – especially compared to all those claiming to be one of the first lean thinking effort in healthcare. A good sign was that the author referenced, Going Lean in Health Care, a great report by IHI (James Womack and others). [...]