Lean Leadership for Healthcare: Approaches to Lean Transformation

Healthcare organizations that have already applied Lean thinking to their processes, with the diligence of effective management and strong leadership support, are now realizing the benefits of their efforts. And, many of those benefits surpass what was thought possible just a few years ago. To be successful, these organizations had to provide the leadership to arrive at their future state.

Written by a Shingo Prize-winning author and Lean sensei, Lean Leadership for Healthcare: Approaches to Lean Transformation explains how to apply Lean improvement to both clinical and non-clinical processes. It presents valuable lessons learned by the author over the years of leading improvements in this complex industry and lays out a clear roadmap for initiating your Lean improvements.

Illustrating the leadership behaviors required to achieve sustainable success, the book is ideal for leaders in the healthcare industry looking to initiate Lean improvements to clinical and non-clinical processes. It reviews the fundamentals of Lean and explains how to link a strategy of continuous improvement to corporate strategy to achieve operational excellence. It also describes how to mitigate the risk of failure when undergoing large-scale corporate change—including what can go wrong and how to prevent these failures.

The book includes case studies that share the time-tested insights of healthcare team members and leaders. It outlines a management system for sustaining your Lean improvements and provides the Lean leadership approaches, thoughts, and visual tools you’ll need to guide your organization along the path toward world-class healthcare performance.

About the Author

Ronald Bercaw is the president of Breakthrough Horizons, LTD, a management consulting company specializing in world-class improvement through the application of the Toyota Production System, more commonly known as "Lean." With over twenty years of experience in operations, his Lean management experience was gained through multiple enterprise transformations in different industries including custom packaging, power reliability electronic assembly, and test and measurement products.

Educated at Purdue University, Bercaw learned the details and disciplined applications of Lean principles, habits, and tools from both the Shingijutsu Sensei and their first generation disciples. Working in both shop floor and above-the-shop-floor areas, He has vigorously strived to remove waste from businesses through the involvement and ideas of the people doing the work.

Bercaw has consulting experience in the healthcare sector (U.S. and Canadian health systems including primary care, acute care, and community applications of both clinical and back shop improvement), the commercial sector (administrations, manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, and engineering), and the public sector (U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force including Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) assignments, Pentagon, and Surgeon General Assignments). He is also the author of Taking Improvement from the Assembly Line to Healthcare: The Application of Lean within the Healthcare Industry, published by CRC Press (2012), which won the Shingo Research & Professional Publication Award.

The November 2011 release of his book, Taking Improvement from the Assembly Line to Healthcare, detailed the application of the Toyota Production System within the healthcare industry. The book has been awarded a Shingo Research Award and has been recognized for advancing improvement knowledge.