Lean Management (3)


What drives your teams to provide quality and value to each patient every day? How do you define those responsibilities and translate them to individual initiatives, departments and staff members? How does anyone know that you are making progress? Simple as these questions are, many healthcare organizations don’t ask them. They set goals, but they don’t have a structure to help them follow through effectively. As a result,...
Vision and Alignment in Healthcare: An...
Recent Blog Posts
Respect for People: A Building Block for Engaged...

Virginia Mason’s Respect for People initiative has been a decade-long program designed to sustain a culture of respect across the health system including training...

Which Is Better for Engaging Health Care Staff:...

In my work with health care organizations, I’m sometimes asked about the differences between lean and Six Sigma. They’re two different philosophies, but people...

How an Improvement System is Helping North Shore...

Our recent blogs have focused on stories of how we have used our management system, the Virginia Mason Production System® (VMPS) during the COVID-19 response at...

Improving Through Crisis: Deploying Improvement...

As we face the ongoing challenges in responding to the COVID-19 crisis, we continue to be inspired by how our clients and partners are meeting this pandemic...

Responding to Crisis at Virginia Mason

A Message from Our Executive Director, Sarah Patterson You are in our thoughts as we hear about the incredible efforts that are underway in your organizations in...

How to Create a Pathway to Better Patient Care –...

As CEO of a major health system, I’ve seen value-based care turn the axiom “you get what you pay for” on its head. If you would have asked me whether that adage...

Bringing Disruptive Innovation to the Front Lines...

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...

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...

Selected Resources

Healthcare Improvement Insights

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

Mistake Proofing in Ambulatory, Procedural, and ...

Mistake Proofing in Ambulatory, Procedural, and ...

Welcome to our blog miniseries: Transforming Healthcare, featuring some of the biggest takeaways ...

Mistake Proofing in Ambulatory, Procedural, and Inpatient Care

Welcome to our blog miniseries: Transforming Healthcare, featuring some of the biggest takeaways ...

Culture of Care

Culture of Care

Explore how equity-focused improvement, coaching and lived experience can strengthen staff ...

Culture of Care

Explore how equity-focused improvement, coaching and lived experience can strengthen staff ...

Bridge to Excellence with Three Rivers Hospital

Bridge to Excellence with Three Rivers Hospital

Join host Brenda McLeod in conversation with Jamie Boyer, German Meza, and Karen Gifford about ...

Bridge to Excellence with Three Rivers Hospital

Join host Brenda McLeod in conversation with Jamie Boyer, German Meza, and Karen Gifford about ...