Lean in Nursing?
January 21, 2009 by jscott
Ensuring value added care delivery processes is critical in today’s tough economic climate. While many organizations have made changes to nursing roles, staffing and work environments, these changes are complex and challenging to implement. Recently in healthcare management engineering approaches such as Lean and Six Sigma have been found to be very effective in introducing process changes in healthcare. I believe that these approaches are successful not just because of their powerful tools and methodology, but because they heavily involve front line staff in redesign efforts. There is a well known saying that people do not turn their back on what they create. So let’s harness the power of nurses to redesign care delivery – reducing waste and enhancing quality and value!
Team Development
November 23, 2008 by jscott
High performing teams are essential in managing the complexity and challenges of healthcare today. According to Lenconi, there are five behavioural patterns that undermine leadership teams and cause them to fail. They include absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results. Read more
Insights on Benchmarking
November 23, 2008 by jscott
Many organizations are undergoing benchmarking as a means to identify opportunities for efficiencies and cost savings. The fact is there is tremendous interest and stakes in knowing how our organization compares to others. Consultants respond by delivering products that the market desires – remember that. Benchmarking is a tool – that is all that it is. Sometimes it turns into a weapon unfortunately and as a consultant who – I admit – participates in benchmarking projects from time to time – I have some words of advice. First of all, make sure you understand the approach the consultant firm is taking, in particular who you are being compared to and how they allocate costs. Also, don’t be afraid to ask tough questions. A strong consulting firm can and should be able to back up their methodology.
Centralization vs Decentralization
November 21, 2008 by jscott
As a fan of complex adaptive system theory, I was intrigued by the discussion of centralization versus decentralization in recent book “The Wisdom of Crowds”, by Jim Surowiecki. Jim points out that in the past 15 years, increasing attention has been given to self-organizing and decentralized systems – systems without central control that connect, adapt and learn. Read more
