New Book by Stanford Children’s Health Experts Explores Advanced Lean in Healthcare

In health care, the “lean” approach is much more than quality improvement and cost reduction. At its core, lean is about continuously striving for the best outcome and experience for patients using the fewest wasted resources. A new book, Advanced Lean in Healthcare, describes the evolution of a management system that would allow any health care organization to achieve a lean system in its own way.

Authors Craig Albanese, MD, MBA, vice president of quality and performance improvement at Stanford Children’s Health and professor of pediatric surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine; Terry Platchek, MD, medical director for performance improvement at Stanford Children’s Health and clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine; and Darin Aaby, MS, executive director at JWA Consulting, bring together their years of experience developing lean performance environments in a variety of settings. The three have worked together implementing advanced lean at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford for the past three years.

“The purpose of the book is to advance the practical knowledge of a committed lean healthcare leader to help create an operating system that develops all the way to continuous improvement,” Albanese says. “We hope that, through reading the book, organizations can move beyond stabilizing work processes to get to continuously improving the entire system, which will result in dramatic improvements in quality, safety, timely access and cost—all within an empathetic healing environment.”

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford first embarked on a journey toward lean management back in 2010, with an effort to improve its operating room efficiency and quality. Since then, the hospital’s lean approach, called the Packard Quality Management System, has been adopted hospital-wide, providing a shared framework for continuous improvement.

“Adopting and creating a lean performance environment takes a major commitment by an entire organization,” said Anne McCune, chief operating officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Children’s Health. “This book accurately reflects not just why we undertook this journey, but also the fundamentals, the learning experience, the engagement, and shared values. While we have not reached the total destination, we are getting closer all the time.”

Christopher G. Dawes, president and chief executive officer, agreed. “We’ve seen extraordinary success with a lean approach to the way we work,” Dawes said. “Our experts and their teams are doing an amazing job guiding our organization and culture to achieve a lean performance environment. It’s wonderful that they have captured that wisdom and experience to guide others on this important journey.”

To learn more about Advanced Lean in Healthcare and purchase a copy, visit advancedlean.com or Amazon.

About Stanford Children’s Health and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford

Stanford Children’s Health, with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford at its core, is an internationally recognized leader in world-class, nurturing care and extraordinary outcomes in every pediatric and obstetric specialty from the routine to rare, for every child and pregnant woman. Together with our Stanford Medicine physicians, nurses, and staff, we deliver this innovative care and research through partnerships, collaborations, outreach, specialty clinics and primary care practices at more than 100 locations in the U.S. western region. As a non-profit, we are committed to supporting our community – from caring for uninsured or underinsured kids, homeless teens and pregnant moms, to helping re-establish school nurse positions in local schools. Learn more about our full range of preeminent programs and network of care at stanfordchildrens.org, and on our Healthier, Happy Lives blog. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford is the heart of Stanford Children’s Health, and is one of the nation’s top hospitals for the care of children and expectant mothers. For a decade, we have received the highest specialty rankings of any Northern California children’s hospital, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2014-15 Best Children’s Hospitals survey, and are the only hospital in Northern California to receive the national 2013 Leapfrog Group Top Children’s Hospital award for quality and patient care safety. Discover more at stanfordchildrens.org.

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