Kaizen Workshops for Lean Healthcare

Part of the Lean Tools for Healthcare series, this user-friendly book will help to improve your understanding of kaizen. It describes exactly what a kaizen event is and details all the phases necessary for implementing continuous improvement practices in your healthcare organization.

Kaizen Workshops for Lean Healthcare walks you through the steps of conducting an effective kaizen workshop—one that is well planned, well implemented, and well monitored. The information is presented in an easy-to-assimilate format. Numerous illustrations reinforce the text and margin assists call your attention to key terms, healthcare examples, and how-to steps.

Throughout the book, you will be asked to reflect on questions that will help you apply the concepts and techniques in your own workplace. Defining the key concepts and elements of the "production" of healthcare services, the text delineates the differences between healthcare processes and the individual cycles of work that those processes link together. It also:

• Provides foundational information on kaizen and kaizen workshops—defining the key roles for success
• Explains exactly how to plan and prepare
• Presents examples of how to present workshop results and how to follow up
• Includes a concise summary of kaizen workshop steps
• Supplies a list of additional resources for learning more about the different kinds of improvement methodologies you might want to implement in your kaizen workshops

If your healthcare organization fully applies the steps detailed in this book, it will gain much more than the knowledge of how to conduct a workshop. Through kaizen, you will empower your employees to make positive change a reality. And incrementally, kaizen workshops will become more than isolated events—they will become the way all work is done in your organization.