The Healthcare Innovator's Workbook

Making Lean Design in Healthcare Happen

Adam Ward

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367201401
• eBook ISBN: 9780429535383
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

This book gives the reader an inside look at creating a new healthcare service using practical examples and scenarios one would face if doing it themselves. This workbook is a follow-up to the recently published, Lean Design in Healthcare and offers a tactical version of the principles provided in the book. It parses the dialogue out into detailed reasons for the Lean Design in Healthcare's position and principles. This workbook contains examples and many exercises for the reader to complete to begin their own innovation journey.

Lean Design in Healthcare chronicles the journey of a fictitious healthcare delivery organization using the Simpler Design System principles based on Lean methodologies. While the characters and actual story is fictitious, it is based on the journey many healthcare systems and clients have taken, the issues they have faced, and the successes and failures they've had. This workbook takes the initial story further and includes leadership quotes and best practices to support the dialogue introduced in the first book. Exercises will be custom designed to match the story flow and provides practical information that readers can immediately apply in their work. Each chapter will start with an introduction and contain 10 exercises per chapter. Tools include those gleaned from actual application of Lean Product Development, Agile, Design for Six Sigma, and Design Thinking Principles.

Chapter 1

Players

Systematic innovation is an achievable goal for any organization. Whether you are the chief executive officer (CEO), middle management, or in the early stages of your career, you can make it happen. We face a lot of obstacles in today’s environment. Our penchant to spend more than what we have seems to be the major theme, whether that is time or money. Read the titles of these articles:

◾A Foolish Take: Here’s how much debt the average U.S. household owes https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/107651700

◾How Americans’ Love Affair with Debt Has Grown https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/09/how-americans-love-affair-with-debt-has-grown/63552/

◾Americans Are Spending Again: Average American Debt in 2017 https://www.studentdebtrelief.us/news/average-american-debt-2017/

◾The Bureau of Labor statistics reports that dual income families are on the rise https://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm

◾Too Many Extracurricular Activities for Kids May Do More Harm Than Good https://psychcentral.com/news/2018/05/15/too-many-extracurricular-activities-for-kids-may-do-more-harm-than-good/135388.html

Unfortunately, our personal habits impact our professional work. We take the same [un] limits in time and money and try to get them to work in our healthcare system. We think there’s always more money, always available time, and always available people. But there isn’t. And with healthcare costs, healthcare workers’ burnout, regulatory dynamism, and consumerism all out of control, it’s time to systematize innovation. We need a process that updates healthcare services on a regular basis. The care models we deliver must be radically improved or disrupted. Outsiders think they can do it. Silicon Valley has tried. Disruption will come from within, but an insider will go outside to fix it. Why not be part of the solution now before it’s too late and the government forces a solution that is bad for everybody?

Services

Healthcare offers a service to patients: maintaining their health, or their ability to do life. That service is broken into many types of services. Each one of those services is delivered via a care model. Those care models could be a service line like orthopedics or gynecology. They could be delivering routine care, addressing a trauma, or treating something chronic. How we deliver those services determines patient satisfaction. When patients become dissatisfied, they find someone else who can take care of them. As a healthcare system, we want to grow our patient panel, not lose it. Let’s look at the totality of services offered as our portfolio of services. We can’t let those services get outdated or get behind the competitors. As leaders, we have a small city of employees who depend on us for their livelihood, and we take that responsibility seriously. Nothing ensures the future health outlook of our organization than taking steps to stay healthy today. That includes a constant update of our portfolio. This workbook helps establish that capability.

Some of those services aren’t core and are often outsourced so the organization can focus on practicing medicine.

◾Clinical (e.g., blood services, dialysis, and lithotripsy)

◾Financial (e.g., credit card processing, resource management/staffing, and revenue cycle management)

◾Environmental (e.g., facility cleaning, waste management, and linens/laundry)

◾Support services (e.g., ambulance, food services, and transcription)

According to research, purchased services can account for up to 35 percent of a typical U.S. hospital’s operating expenses. That leaves 65 percent of the budget for care. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/supply-chain/5-common-misconceptions-about-hospital-purchased-services.html

We have the capability to define every single dollar spent. Our portfolio is a result of our choices. Where we go in the future is up to us, the leaders. Leadership guru John Maxwell defined leadership as “influence.” Influence is critical to implementing the principles in this book. https://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/7-factors-that-influence-influence/

During my time at GE, one of the premier leadership development companies, we were taught a change accele...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Author
• Introduction
• 1. Players
• 2. Basics
• 3. Basic Tools
• 4. RED Framework
• 5. Reflection
• Index