Foundations of Healthcare Improvement
Build essential skills in problem-solving, waste reduction, and team-based methods to drive reliable, patient-centered change.
Foundations In Healthcare Improvement
Across this two-module program, learners gain the skills to capture and assess the current state of their processes and apply practical improvement techniques to address identified challenges.
Delivery Model
This self-paced course spans two weeks, allowing participants to Learn, Experience, Apply, and Perform. Training is delivered through modern on-demand, computer-based modules. Each participant can expect about three hours of total learning time.
Target Candidates
Leaders, providers and staff new to improvement.
Number of Candidates
Individual course. Learner can start when convenient.
Core Skills for Better Care
Foundations of Healthcare Improvement teaches learners to assess their current processes and apply practical improvement methods. Topics include the relationship between quality, value, and waste, workflow and patient experience, 5S and setup reduction, and basic mistake-proofing tools.
Connect Quality, Value, and Waste
Understand how reducing waste enhances value and quality, ensuring patients receive the right care, at the right time, through efficient processes.
Master Time and Workflow Efficiency
Learn how time and workflow analysis reveal inefficiencies, improve coordination, and create smoother, more effective processes across the organization.
Place Patients at the Center
Gain insight into the patient’s perspective to identify barriers, improve communication, and design care processes that enhance every experience.
Eliminate Waste with the 5S Method
Apply the 5S method (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) to eliminate waste, create order, and build a foundation for reliable performance.
Find Efficiency in Every Setup
Learn to spot and act on setup opportunities that streamline processes, reduce delays, and enhance efficiency across your daily operations.
Build Quality with Mistake-Proofing
Explore mistake-proofing techniques that prevent errors before they occur, improving safety, consistency, and quality across all areas of work.
Build Habits for Everyday Improvement
These courses empower staff to see their work differently to identify waste, simplify processes, and strengthen patient care. Participants learn how small, consistent improvements build safer, more efficient systems and foster a culture where better never stops.
Know Your Work
Understand your daily work deeply—what you do, why you do it, and how it contributes to the broader mission of improving patient care.
How Waste Affects You and Others
See how inefficiencies in your work impact both colleagues and patients, and learn ways to reduce waste that improves outcomes for everyone.
How You Influence Value
Discover how your actions directly shape quality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction to create more value across every part of care delivery.
Emotions Matter in Healthcare!
Recognize the emotional side of care and how empathy, respect, and connection build trust and strengthen the patient and team experience.
What’s a Mistake?
Learn to identify, discuss, and prevent mistakes in a culture of safety where errors become opportunities for learning and improvement.
Improve Your Work
Develop a mindset of continuous improvement by learning to spot problems, test solutions, and make meaningful changes every day.
First, Do No Harm
Reinforce the core commitment of healthcare—safety first—by learning practices that protect patients and support reliable care delivery.
Sorting Lessens Your Burden
Use the 5S principle of sorting to remove clutter, simplify your workspace, and reduce stress and wasted motion in daily tasks.
Keeping It Simple
Focus on straightforward solutions that eliminate unnecessary complexity, making processes easier, safer, and more efficient.
Improve with Standards
Understand how consistent standards create reliability, ensure quality, and empower teams to sustain improvements over time.
How to Spend Less Time and Do Less Walking
Identify ways to improve workspace layout and workflow so staff can spend more time on care and less on unnecessary movement.
Better Never Stops
Embrace a culture of ongoing learning and improvement, where every small step forward contributes to better care and a stronger system.
Build Skills That Drive Results
The LEAP model helps healthcare teams turn learning into action. By combining education, real-world application, and measurable performance, organizations build the capability to improve quality, safety, and efficiency sustainably and at scale.
Learn
Build foundational knowledge through engaging, self-paced lessons.
Experience
Practice new concepts through hands-on, team-based activities.
Apply
Use proven tools to solve real challenges in your own workplace.
Perform
Sustain improvements and measure impact over time.
A Foundation for Lasting Improvement
Gain core knowledge through interactive, self-paced lessons that introduce proven tools and methods for healthcare improvement.
Learning Into Hands-on Understanding
Engage in simulations and team-based exercises that bring improvement principles to life and strengthen practical skills.
Improvement Tools in Real Settings
Translate new knowledge into action by applying lean tools and problem-solving methods to real challenges in your workplace.
Measurable, Sustainable Results
Embed continuous improvement practices into daily work to sustain gains and drive ongoing performance improvement.
Learn Proven Methods to Improve Healthcare
Equip your healthcare leaders and teams with practical improvement skills grounded in the Virginia Mason Production System®. Learn by doing, apply concepts to real work, and build the capability to improve safety, quality, flow, and care delivery.
Register For Foundations in Healthcare Improvement
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