My guest for episode #168 is Carolyn McCulley, from CityGate Films, and she is a co-director and producer of the upcoming documentary called "Breaking the Wall of Silence." Through March 31, you can sponsor this project through the Kickstarter website (with a minimum contribution of $15) and I hope you'll join me as a supporter of this important work. Learn more at www.leanblog.org/168. As Carolyn discusses with me, the film does not just focus on the problems of patient safety and poor healthca...
Mar 18, 2013•26 min•Season 1Ep. 168
My guest for episode #167 is Clare Crawford-Mason , the producer of the landmark 1980 NBC documentary that featured W. Edwards Deming, “ If Japan Can Do It, Why Can't We? ” You can view the documentary here . I was fortunate to meet Clare and her husband Bob back in 2007 or so when I was teaching a Lean healthcare seminar near their home in Washington, DC. Clare and Bob led the efforts to create the “Deming Library” video series . They also created the PBS special “ Good News: How Hospitals Heal...
Mar 10, 2013•37 min•Season 1Ep. 167
My guest for episode #166 is Julie Bartels , Executive Vice President, National Healthcare Information at the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value . In this episode, we are talking about their new program, the Healthcare Clinical Business Intelligence Network (CBIN) . Julie tells us about “business intelligence” and how data and transparency relate to Lean improvement efforts. Why is “the devil in the details” in making more data available to payers and patients? Listen to find out. Read an FAQ...
Feb 27, 2013•26 min•Season 1Ep. 166
My guest for episode #165 is Chris Vogel , President & CEO of Compass Affiliates . I've met Chris before at an LEI Lean Transformation Summit and he is doing a learning session at this year's Summit , to be held March 13 and 14 in Orlando. Chris specializes in the Development of Lean Leaders and Administrative Lean. He has over 15 years of Lean Administrative and Process Improvement experience. During his 15 years at Wells Fargo, Chris led and used Lean to transform a division of Wells Fargo...
Feb 06, 2013•30 min•Season 1Ep. 165
My guest for episode #164 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Rachelle Schultz , CEO of Winona Health (based in Winona, Minnesota). Rachelle was a part of the CEO panel that I moderated at last year's Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit and her comments on leading a health system's Lean transformation were well received. In this discussion, she says, “Everything I do has to drive Lean,” as we talk about how her system is using Lean in these challenging times and what the impact has been – q...
Jan 31, 2013•26 min•Season 1Ep. 164
My guest for episode #163 is Dr. Gregory R. Johnson, the Chief Medical Officer at Parkview Health in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In this episode, we talk about how Parkview is using Lean to cope with today's challenging environment, how Dr. Johnson encourages Lean thinking among physicians, and the role of standardization in medicine. Dr. Johnson says Parkview is moving toward “having everyone operating in a Lean way, all 8200 co-workers” instead of just doing “Rapid Improvement Events.” This episode i...
Jan 24, 2013•27 min•Season 1Ep. 163
My guests for episode #162 are Patrick Vlaskovits ( @pv ) and Brant Cooper ( @brantcooper ), previously guests on episode #99 . I recently ran into them at the Lean Startup Conference and today we are speaking about their newest book (coming in February) The Lean Entrepreneur: How to Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets . You can learn more via their website: www.LeanEntrepreneur.co In this episode, we talk about: What is Lean Entrepreneurship? How does Lean create di...
Jan 17, 2013•27 min•Season 1Ep. 162
Steve Bell, author (most recently) of the book Run Grow Tra n sform: Integrating Business and Lean IT is my guest for episode #161 of my podcast series. Steve is a fellow faculty member for the Lean Enterprise Institute and he is also a founder of Lean4NGO.org , working with non-profits in the developing world. He is also founder of Lean IT Strategies, LLC , coaching IT professionals as they partner with their business colleagues to meet the challenges and exploit the opportunities in the rapidl...
Jan 08, 2013•35 min•Season 1Ep. 161
My guest for podcast #160 is Joseph S. Guarisco, M.D., FAAEM, FACEP . Dr. Guarisco is currently Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine and System Chief of Emergency Services for the Ochsner Health System. Dr. Guarisco is a keynote speaker at the upcoming Society for Health Systems conference (which I'll be attending) and we are both part of the American Academy of Emergency Physicians annual scientific assembly in February (where I'll be co-presenting with my Healthcare Kaizen co-autho...
Jan 04, 2013•30 min•Season 1Ep. 160
A returning guest for episode #159 is John Toussaint, MD , the CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value and the author of the books On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry and Potent Medicine: The Collaborative Cure for Healthcare . John was a guest on episodes 54 , 62 , 72 , and 146 . Today's main topic is a new report, published last month by the Institute of Medicine, titled “ Best Care at Lower Cost: The Path to Continuously Learning Health Ca...
Oct 15, 2012•31 min•Season 1Ep. 159
My guest for podcast #158 is Art Byrne, author of the new book The Lean Turnaround: How Business Leaders Use Lean Principles to Create Value and Transform Their Company . Art is very well known in the Lean community for his successful run as CEO of Wiremold, having previously worked at GE and Danaher. He is currently Operating Partner at the private equity firm J. W. Childs Associates L.P. In this podcast, Art talks about operations improvement as a business strategy, why the CEO needs to be dir...
Sep 27, 2012•32 min•Season 1Ep. 158
Show notes: https://leanblog.org/157 Remastered June 2021 Joining me for episode #157 is Nick Sarillo , founder of Nick's Pizza & Pub and author of the new book (out September 13) called A Slice of the Pie: How to Build a Big Little Business . I had a chance to meet Nick and visit one of his restaurants in 2010 after I blogged about an Inc. magazine article about their culture and their approach to operations. It was great talking to Nick about his new book and what I call the “Like Lean” mi...
Aug 23, 2012•26 min•Season 1Ep. 157
My guest for episode #156 is a friend, Mike Stoecklein , the Director of Network Operations for the Healthcare Value Network . I was able to work with Mike when I was an employee of the Lean Enterprise Institute , working closely with the HVN team and its members . Our conversation is about Mike's reflections on meeting Dr. W. Edwards Deming in the late 1980s, volunteering to assist with some of his famed 4-day seminars around the country. You can read Mike's excellent blog post that was the bas...
Aug 16, 2012•30 min•Season 1Ep. 156
Joining me for episode #155 is Jim Benson , co-author of the book Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life . Jim is the founder of a company with a great name, Modus Cooperandi . He is, most notably, the creator of the “ personal kanban ” approach for managing work. It's not kanban as in material management, but rather a way of visualizing work and setting WIP limits (much as kanban might be used to trigger or limit production in a factory) — but for knowledge workers and anybody! Learn m...
Aug 09, 2012•28 min•Season 1Ep. 155
My guest for episode #154 is Rick Morrow , a director at Healthcare Performance Partners and author of the book Utilizing the 3Ms of Process Improvement in Healthcare: A Roadmap to High Reliability Using Lean, Six Sigma, and Change Leadership , from Productivity Press (which is my publisher, as well ). We talk about the book as well as a favorite issue of mine – why we shouldn't ask patients to inspect the work of healthcare providers. You can learn more about the book and interact with Rick at ...
Jul 31, 2012•27 min•Season 1Ep. 154
Joining me for Podcast #153 is Robert Maurer, PhD , Director of Behavioral Sciences for the Family Practice Residency Program at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and a faculty member with the UCLA School of Medicine. We are talking about his excellent book titled One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way . I discovered Maurer's book when doing research for our recently-published Healthcare Kaizen . Here is my earlier review and blog post about his book . It's really interesting to hear...
Jul 24, 2012•24 min•Season 1Ep. 153
My guest for podcast #152 is Matt Stewart , and we are talking about his book The Walk-On: Inside Northwestern's Rise From Cellar Dweller To Big Ten Champ . Matt and I are both graduates of Northwestern University. While he played football on a championship team, I was on the field as a marching band drummer. There are a lot of football stories in the book, but our episode focuses on the lifelong leadership lessons that come from the rise of Northwestern's program – how do we motivate people to ...
Jul 17, 2012•36 min•Season 1Ep. 152
Joining me for episode #151 is my friend Karen Martin , talking about her newly-released book The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence . Karen is the founder of Karen Martin & Associates and she is previously the co-author of The Outstanding Organization: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service, and Technical Environments . FastCompany.com has an excerpt from The Outstanding Organization here. For ...
Jul 09, 2012•24 min•Season 1Ep. 151
My guest for episode #150 is Jeffrey M. Lobosky, MD , the author of the book It's Enough to Make You Sick: The Failure of American Health Care and a Prescription for the Cure . Dr. Lobosky talks about what he thinks is lacking in current healthcare reform efforts driven by Washington D.C. We talk about how he defines the crisis in healthcare – “why are things going bad?” After we diagnose the problem, what are some treatments, cures, or solutions? For a link to this episode, refer people to www....
Jun 06, 2012•22 min•Season 1Ep. 150
My guest for episode #149 is Gregory Jacobson, MD , the co-founder and CEO at KaiNexus . We'll be talking about his early work with Kaizen in emergency medicine settings – how did he get introduced to Kaizen principles and how did train others, especially physicians, in getting started with this methodology? In a future episode, we'll talk more about KaiNexus and use of software, but today's focus is on the application of core Kaizen principles (as discussed in my book Healthcare Kaizen ). For a...
May 31, 2012•26 min•Season 1Ep. 149
Episode #148 is a conversation with a returning guest, Naida Grunden ( previous episode ) and her co-author Charles Hagood (of Healthcare Performance Partners ), talking about their new book Lean-Led Hospital Design: Creating the Efficient Hospital of the Future . It's an outstanding book and I was happy to endorse it , as did John Toussaint, MD and many others. In the podcast, we talk about what lean-led hospital design entails, including getting staff involved, how to tie processes and space t...
May 21, 2012•21 min•Season 1Ep. 148
Episode #147 is a part two of a conversation with Scott Patten and Peter Armstrong from LeanPub.com (listen to part one in episode #140 ). They want to be THE website for publishing “in-progress books”. In this episode, we are talking about how they are applying the concepts of the Lean Startup methodology to their service and their business. We'll talk about some of my own experiences as an early adopter and later as an actual user — what have they learned along the way and how do they use lean...
May 15, 2012•32 min•Season 1Ep. 147
Episode #146 is a discussion with a returning guest (# 54 , # 62 , # 72 ), John Toussaint, MD , the CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value . Today, we're talking about his latest book, recently released, called Potent Medicine: The Collaborative Cure for Healthcare . John talks about the three aspects of his collaborative cure: patient-centered care redesign, transparency, and payment for outcomes. A lot of the discussion follows on my conversation with Dean Gruner, MD in Podcast #144 ...
May 02, 2012•28 min•Season 1Ep. 146
Episode #145 is a conversation with Natalie J. Sayer , co-author of the recently updated 2nd edition of the book Lean For Dummies . I was able to meet Natalie at the recent ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Conference, where she was also a presenter. While I was a bit resistant at first to the “for Dummies” being associated with Lean (given that “dummy” is a sort of disrespectful word), I came around when I read the first edition and found it to be a fun, solid overview of Lean concepts and a great first r...
Apr 25, 2012•26 min•Season 1Ep. 145
Episode #144 is a discussion with Dean Gruner, MD , the president & CEO of ThedaCare , talking about Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and how ThedaCare is using this approach, along with Lean methods, to improve the coordination of care for patients. Dean was previously a guest in episode 119 , talking about the “strategy deployment” methodology. Dean will be presenting at the upcoming Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit , June 6-7, 2012 in Minneapolis. I hope to see you there! I'll b...
Apr 16, 2012•23 min•Season 1Ep. 144
Like podcast #133 , this episode is a Q&A that follows up a webinar I did for my good friends at Gemba Academy recently, on the topic “Using Statistical Process Control (SPC) to Make Better Management Decisions.” You can view a recording of the webinar here or on the Gemba Academy website . You can get the slides here . This might seem like an esoteric topic, but it's one I've found to be VERY practical and helpful in my career and with my clients. Some feedback I got included, “That wasn't ...
Apr 05, 2012•26 min•Season 1Ep. 143
Episode page Episode #142 brings us a returning guest ( #115 ), Eric Ries , author of the best-selling book The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses . In the book, Eric cites the work of Taiichi Ohno, including the “5 Whys” problem-solving approach. In this podcast, Eric shares his story about finding Ohno's work (including the Lean classic Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production ) and how it has influenced hi...
Mar 13, 2012•12 min•Season 1Ep. 142
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/141 Remastered audio June 2021 Episode #141 is a chat with Norman Bodek , as he shares his recollections of working with Taiichi Ohno , one of the creators of the Toyota Production System. Norman met and worked with Ohno in Japan and then published the translation of Ohno's classic book Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production in 1988. For a link to this episode, refer people to www.leanblog.org/141 . For earlier episodes, visit the main Podcas...
Mar 08, 2012•30 min•Season 1Ep. 141
Episode #140 is a discussion with Scott Patten and Peter Armstrong from LeanPub.com – they want to be THE website for publishing “in-progress books”. We'll be talking about lean publishing and how that's different than self publishing and about how leanpub.com works. In the upcoming part 2 of the podcast, we'll talk more about how they are applying the concepts of the Lean Startup methodology to their service and their business. Conflict of interest disclosure: I have published a number of books...
Feb 28, 2012•32 min•Season 1Ep. 140
Episode #139 is a conversation with Dave Munch, MD , the Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for Healthcare Performance Partners (HPP). Before joining the consulting firm, Dave was a senior C-level clinical leader at Exempla Lutheran Health System where he led their Lean Production applications for more than five years, resulting in substantial improvements in both clinical and non-clinical processes. Today, we are talking about important Lean mindsets and systems principles, includ...
Feb 23, 2012•26 min•Season 1Ep. 139
