Hi, this is Mark Raven and welcome to episode 30 to of lean blog audio. This is a post from April 7 2020. Titled thoughts from lean thinkers on, coping with the coronavirus crisis. I want to give thanks to Elizabeth Swann and the team at go lean Six Sigma.com for inviting me to contribute, some thoughts in a piece that they titled how lean Six Sigma can
fight the coronavirus pandemic. So if you want to read that entire piece with all the contributors, you can find a link to it at lean blog dot org, slash audio 302. So I wrote something, there were other contributors including some people. I've interviewed and Mylene blog interviews. Podcast series, Karen, Ross, Crystal Davis, Katie Anderson, and to people I hope will be guess at some point in time soon. I'll be interviewing Mohamed Salah and I hope to interview my
friend Darryl will burn. So again that post at go lean Six Sigma.com is titled how lean Six Sigma can help fight the coronavirus pandemic, the piece I contribute, it is titled how to be helpful. Not how to be healthful. That's a good idea. How to be helpful in the world of healthcare. So I'll read that for you in a minute. We'll be right back with crisis.
Comes creativity in healthcare creative, countermeasures to the covid-19 crisis, are a matter of life and death, you know, because lean is not just a tool box. It's a spirit of seeing problems, which are hard to miss. Now, solving problems, and solving problems for the benefit of others, covid-19 requires people to develop new processes and methods for providing care and protecting others, many Health Systems.
Have told their process Improvement professionals to work from home, putting the employees, health and safety first, but together with the Healthcare System, leaders also often working from home. They can still develop new standardized, work through web meetings and video chats cycles of plan. Do study, adjust still need to take place. It takes creativity to
facilitate from afar. Frontline staff were busy but there are hospitals in parts of the United States that are experiencing the Calm, before the storm. They're taking this time to engage staff in the development, testing and refinement of new processes for greeting and triaging patients. Determining if they have symptoms, that require them to be separated from other patients, in the name of social distancing, one Health Care
system. I know his greatly accelerated the development and use of telemedicine Technologies. It's a short-term reactive Improvement. That will probably From the norm will need it post-crisis because it has so many benefits and the good news is that it's now being reimbursed. Thanks to crisis-driven changes. Given the problem of patients who can't be cared for outside
of clinics and emergency rooms. One Clinic I've worked with is now using walkie-talkies and other Technologies to communicate with colleagues and patients from afar technologies that promote physical distancing, provide additional benefits in reducing the waste of motion and transportation. So they might also become The New Normal For some Health Care Systems. They know a tsunami wave of patients is coming. It's not a matter of if.
But when the wave hits their city or region, the tsunami has already hit Italy, New York and other locales. We need a spirit of collaboration where improvements and new practices are shared around the world and across the country reaching other Healthcare Systems. Before the deadly wave of covid-19 hits their communities. So I want to thank my friends at go lean Six Sigma.com. If you go you can share the thoughts from all the others. If you go to lean blog dot org slash audio 302.
I'm going to close. I love the sentiment from Daryl will burn. He said, as a former Toyota team member, I had drilled into my brain. When times are hard, prepare for when times are easy, when times are easy, prepare for when times are hard. Thanks for listening.