The content of this workbook is based on the book Lean Doctors: A Bold and Practical Guide to Transforming Healthcare Systems, One Doctor at a Time, and on the authors’ years of transforming care delivery systems with lean. The Six Success Steps discussed in the book are presented here with a focus on implementing them to achieve dramatic and sustainable change. The Success Steps are building blocks; the order in which you apply them matters. They are presented here in an order that has worked in the real world; working through them logically will help you on the path to successful implementation. Each Success Step includes a practical explanation of the theory and maps that illustrate how that particular step impacts the care process in the context of a detailed case study. The authors use several Lean mapping tools, including lean process maps, spaghetti diagrams, and swim lane diagrams. In addition to illustrating lean concepts and their application in the context of a case study discussed throughout the book, these maps provide instructive examples that can help you create similar maps for the processes you operate. With its interactive format and step-by-step design, this workbook is ideal for use in the classroom to teach Lean principles, or with a lean project team to guide a clinical implementation. Together with Lean Doctors, this workbook will help the student of lean or the lean project team learn and apply a complete lean system in a healthcare setting.

Foreword by Michael F. Gutzeit, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Quality, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin This practical, how-to book clearly and succinctly takes the reader through six proven “success steps” for implementing lean in any healthcare environment: 1. Create physician flowbr 2. Support physician value-added timebr 3. Visually communicate patient statusbr 4. Standardize everyone’s workbr 5. Lay out the clinic for minimal motionbr 6. Change the care delivery model Why go through such a transformation? Because it works. Tell a doctor that he can see the same number of patients, offering the same high quality and personal care, and have an extra 90 minutes at the end of his clinic day – and that means something. Tell the staff that they can look forward to actually ending on time, with satisfied patients, no backlog, and having focused their attention completely on quality patient care – and they will listen. These Lean principles and success steps work in clinics ranging from orthopedics to neurology to cardiac care—the specialty doesn’t matter. They work in small practices and large hospital settings. Lean methodology provides the tools to address the frustrations patients and doctors alike experience in the clinic process. Included throughout the book is a case study showing the lean transformation undertaken at the Orthopedic Center at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, with numerous quotes and insights from those actually involved. This transformation resulted in patient wait times being reduced by more than 70 percent, the clinic being able to see 25 percent more patients in less space, patient satisfaction scores sometimes reaching 100 percent, and staff satisfaction scores improving by more than 25 percent.

To help medical practices increase profitability without cutting costs or boosting revenues, Greenbranch Publishing announces a new book by Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt Frank Cohen and Practice Management Expert Owen Dahl: Mastering Lean Six Sigma for the Medical Practice - Improving Profitability by Improving Processes. For the first time, this new book translates Lean Six Sigma principles and tools specifically for the real-world medical practice environment. Drawing on his involvement with over 2,000 medical practices, author and Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt Frank Cohen empowers practices - and their advisors - to use 24 process improvement tools to boost efficiency so more of the revenues that come in go directly to the bottom line. What types of improvements can practices make? Learn how to use analytics to identify inconsistent behavior by payers - so practices can hold payers' feet to the fire. See how process improvement can help practices reduce denials by upwards of 50%. Use these techniques to improve both patient satisfaction and staff morale. Learn how to eliminate bottlenecks in your practice and use metrics to make smart practice improvement decisions. Over the past 20 years, Lean and Six Sigma approaches have created profit breakthroughs for other types of businesses. Cohen and Dahl bring this methodology to health care providers, whittling down the myriad of traditional Lean Six Sigma tools to only those that matter most to their practices. Add Lean Six Sigma for the Medical Practice to your "must-read-now" bookshelf and take the first steps toward improving everything from patient visit cycle time to, A/R to staff and patient satisfaction and morale to compliance.

Performance management, the primary focus of a Lean organization, occurs through continuous improvement programs that focus on education, belief systems development, and effective change management. Presenting a first-of-its-kind approach, The Lean Management Systems Handbook details the critical components required for sustainable Lean management.

Among the first books to focus on physician engagement during a Lean effort, Sustaining Lean in Healthcare: Developing and Engaging Physician Leadership explains how to ensure ongoing physician participation long after the consultant leaves. Dr. Michael Nelson, an early adopter of Lean in healthcare, explains how to use these synergic tools to achieve consistently high levels of quality and clinical care outcomes. The book begins with a Lean primer that provides a firm foundation in essential Lean concepts—including value stream maps, 6S, Kanban, Heijunka, and Gemba Walks. Next, it examines how to create a physician engagement plan and covers the specific responsibilities of physician leadership through the Lean transformation. Explaining what to look for when judging success, it provides numerous examples that demonstrate how to sustain success over the long term. Complete with tips for spotting the danger signs that might indicate your plan is off course, this book details time-tested techniques and strategies for reducing waste in healthcare. It supplies a methodology for establishing shared expectations of success with your medical team early on in the process, as well as a proven framework for simultaneous Lean deployment across multiple locations. Praise for the book: In this book , Dr. Nelson draws on his forty years of medical practice and his experience as an early adopter of Lean for healthcare, to identify a crucial piece to aligning healthcare organizations for success; Physician Engagement. ... Healthcare executives and clinicians will appreciate and learn from Dr. Nelson’s insight. —Robert Iversen, Director, Accenture Management Consulting ...Instead of writing another how-to book, Mike has taken the opportunity to provide insights that are sure to help any healthcare organization sustain the impact of its Lean engagement. —Rick Malik, Worldwide Director, ValuMetrix® Services, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics ... provides realistic estimates of timelines for projects, expected satisfaction, quality, and financial paybacks, as well as the time commitments required for Lean healthcare initiatives to become durable successes. —David Mann, PhD, Principal, David Mann Lean Consulting ... simplifies and organizes the steps needed to effectively and successfully take advantage of the significant contributions Lean management can make ... . —Edward D. Martin, MD, Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Martin Blanck & Associates, Inc. Lean has become a critical predictor of successful systems going forward. Sustaining Lean in Healthcare is the book to get this done. —Stephen C. Beeson MD, Author of Engaging Physicians, A Manual to Physician Partnership

Twelve years ago, renowned physician and author Dr. William Sears was diagnosed with cancer. He, like so many people, wanted -- and needed -- to take control of his health. Dr. Sears created a comprehensive, science based, head-to-toe program for living a long, fit life -- and it worked. Now at the peak of health, Dr. Sears shares his program in Prime-Time Health. This engaging and deeply informative book will motivate readers to make crucial behavior and lifestyle changes. Dr. Sears explores how to keep each body system healthy and delay those usual age-related changes. Written in Dr. Sears's wise, accessible, and entertaining voice, Prime-Time Health is a practical program to help you live your best life possible-pain-free, disease-free, stress-free, and medication-free.