Administration & Management, Organizational Behavior, Clinical Medicine, Health Care Industries, Management & Leadership

Lean Doctors: A Bold and Practical Guide to Using Lean Principles to Transform Healthcare Systems, One Doctor at a Time

Name: Lean Doctors: A Bold and Practical Guide to Using Lean Principles to Transform Healthcare Systems, One Doctor at a Time
Author: Aneesh Suneja
ISBN: 9780873897853

by Aneesh Suneja, Carolyn Suneja, American Society for Quality Staff

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

[Foreword by Michael F. Gutzeit, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Quality, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.]

This practical, how-to book clearly and succinctly takes the reader through six proven “success steps” for implementing lean in any healthcare environment:

1. Create physician flow
2. Support physician value-added time
3. Visually communicate patient status
4. Standardize everyone’s work
5. Lay out the clinic for minimal motion
6. Change the care delivery model

Why go through such a transformation? Because it works. Tell a doctor that he can see the same number of patients, offering the same high quality and personal care, and have an extra 90 minutes at the end of his clinic day – and that means something. Tell the staff that they can look forward to actually ending on time, with satisfied patients, no backlog, and having focused their attention completely on quality patient care – and they will listen.

These Lean principles and success steps work in clinics ranging from orthopedics to neurology to cardiac care—the specialty doesn’t matter. They work in small practices and large hospital settings. Lean methodology provides the tools to address the frustrations patients and doctors alike experience in the clinic process.

Included throughout the book is a case study showing the lean transformation undertaken at the Orthopedic Center at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, with numerous quotes and insights from those actually involved. This transformation resulted in patient wait times being reduced by more than 70 percent, the clinic being able to see 25 percent more patients in less space, patient satisfaction scores sometimes reaching 100 percent, and staff satisfaction scores improving by more than 25 percent.

About the Author, Aneesh Suneja

Aneesh Suneja is the president and founder of FlowOne Lean Consulting LLC. Aneesh is a chemical engineer, and holds an MBA from Marquette University. He earned a Six Sigma Black Belt through the Whirlpool Corporation in 1998, and studied Lean Manufacturing at the University of Michigan’s Center for Professional Development. Carolyn Suneja has spent more than 15 years in the field of organizational development. Her portfolio includes development of Lean Six Sigma eLearning, thousands of hours of classroom training and group facilitation, skill in implementing performance management systems, and extensive firsthand experience in helping organizations manage the change process. She has a Master’s degree from Marquette University and has a certificate in Lean Manufacturing from the University of Michigan’s Center for Professional Development.