An interview with Cathie Furman, executive faculty member at Virginia Mason Institute When you’re doing lean work, how do you measure ROI? CF: That’s a question we hear all the time. When we first started on our lean journey in 2001, our board agreed we would not measure ROI for that year. They were committed to the business case for quality, and in their eyes, if we focused on quality and safety, the financial improvement would...
How Can Lean Improvement Work Engage Staff and...
Recent Blog Posts
Why Is a Value Stream Map Important for...

A value stream map is a visual depiction of a process from a request for a product or services through delivery. At Virginia Mason, we depict this process not from...

Why Adding More Space Isn’t the Only Answer to...

The best health care leaders are always looking for ways to increase quality and run their business more efficiently. To understand their business, they need to...

What Is the Cost of Not Having a Strategic...

When you think about costs in health care, what costs do you think are hurting us the most? EN: To me, the cost of a broken care system to patients and families is...

How a Value Stream Can Help You Produce...

What is a value stream? A value stream is an improvement philosophy, a systemic way of thinking about the flow of delivering quality health care. Providing value to...

How Lean Health Care Improves Quality, Values...

The best health care ensures that every aspect of every process is in the best interest of patients. At Virginia Mason, we know that by empowering teams to remove...

Leader Tools to Prevent Medical Errors

What health care leaders can do to reduce the number of medical errors in their organization: It starts with culture. A culture of empowerment enables an...

Getting Closer to Continuous Flow in Health Care

What is continuous flow? In manufacturing, continuous flow occurs when a single product is built from start to finish on an assembly line that doesn’t stop. Henry...

Three Ways to Achieve a Future of Better Health...

As a physician and teacher of lean health care methods and tools, I’m often part of conversations with my peers about where the future of health care is going....

How Can Standardizing Surgery Tools Prevent...

An interview with Rosemary King, faculty member at Virginia Mason Institute In your career as the first director of the Kaizen Promotion Office at Virginia Mason,...

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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 ...