Virginia Mason Institute


Virginia Mason spine surgeon, Rajiv Sethi, MD, speaks about why there should be greater urgency to improve the delivery of health care. The U.S. health care system, and many other health systems around the world, are buckling under the overarching pressures to cut costs, improve quality, and expand access. While changing government policies add to the stress, they are not the answer to fixing a wasteful system or the poor...
Bringing Disruptive Innovation to the Front Lines...
Recent Blog Posts
Overcoming Provider Burnout and Restoring Joy to...

Understanding the burnout epidemic Provider burnout has reached concerning levels at health systems across the world. When burnout leads to the permanently damaged...

Flow in Primary Care

Primary care physicians work on the frontlines of care delivery where they strive to serve a growing range of patients with increasingly complex needs, often...

Leveraging 3P in Health Care Facility Design

For more than a decade, interactive and intensive improvement meetings — also known as kaizen events — have created a forum to refine and improve the quality,...

Eliminating Health Care Waste Improves Sepsis...

Why waste elimination is essential to improving health care Waste elimination is essential to the Virginia Mason Production System (VMPS) and lean methodology. The...

Empowering teams to identify and address sepsis,...

Virginia Mason staff members share their experiences implementing the Sepsis Power Hour protocol Sepsis is a factor in one out of every two to three hospital deaths...

The Flows of Medicine

Proper flow influences predictable and reliable processes The experience of flow can be found in nature. A river, for example, has movement, a certain pace to it, a...

Capturing the Patient Voice: Part 2

When patients need a passport In Capturing the Patient Voice – Part 1, we explored how to facilitate greater patient engagement in a health care setting. We also...

How Takt Time Can Help Health Care Organizations...

“Takt” is a German word that means “beat” or “pace.” My foundational understanding of pace takes me back to my early days of studying piano and using the mechanical...

Eliminating Waste and Providing Value to Patients...

Virginia Mason has worked with the Dr. Robert Bree Collaborative to provide greater value for patients through the use of evidence-based care bundles, which map out...

Selected Resources

Healthcare Improvement Insights

Explore articles, case studies, and research that help healthcare leaders drive sustainable improvement.

Mistake-Proofing Primary Care

Mistake-Proofing Primary Care

Start Your Lean Health Care Journey Learn More Problem Virginia Mason recognized that mistakes and ...

Mistake-Proofing Primary Care

Start Your Lean Health Care Journey Learn More Problem Virginia Mason recognized that mistakes and ...

Why a Midwest Health System Went to Virginia ...

Why a Midwest Health System Went to Virginia ...

“The fact that Virginia Mason is driven by the same purpose we are – serving patients and ...

Why a Midwest Health System Went to Virginia Mason Institute for Help

“The fact that Virginia Mason is driven by the same purpose we are – serving patients and ...

Managing Phone Calls in Primary Care

Managing Phone Calls in Primary Care

Problem Responding to patient phone calls at Virginia Mason consumed a great deal of clinic time ...

Managing Phone Calls in Primary Care

Problem Responding to patient phone calls at Virginia Mason consumed a great deal of clinic time ...