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The Lens

The Lens

By Catalysis

Get a glimpse inside healthcare organizations that are transforming to a culture of improvement to deliver continually higher value outcomes for patients, staff, and communities.
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16. How Cleveland Clinic Engages Caregivers in Continuous Improvement

The LensNov 05, 2020

00:00
25:07
91. Modular Integration in Healthcare Facilities

91. Modular Integration in Healthcare Facilities

Jenny Han, Director of Design Integration at The Boldt Company, shares about Boldt’s use of Lean in the development of their modular design healthcare units.

Mar 25, 202422:56
90. Using Appreciative Inquiry in Healthcare

90. Using Appreciative Inquiry in Healthcare

Dr. Elizabeth Warner, Chief Medical Officer at Cherry Health in Michigan and author, joins us to describe the concept and practice of Appreciative Inquiry in healthcare.

Feb 26, 202426:25
89. UW Medicine Valley Medical Center Process Improvement Gold Star Program

89. UW Medicine Valley Medical Center Process Improvement Gold Star Program

Jamie Stillwill and Joell Teal, from the University of Washington – Valley Medical Center, share about their multi-tiered internal recognition program.

Feb 12, 202415:32
88. The Importance of Alignment in Healthcare

88. The Importance of Alignment in Healthcare

Joe Sluka and Dr. Jeff Absalon, from Level Zero, discuss alignment in healthcare organizations and the roles of the board, executive team, and physicians in cultivating this alignment.

Jan 22, 202420:51
87. Preventing Harm through Root Cause Analysis

87. Preventing Harm through Root Cause Analysis

Molly Rank and David Allison, former staff at Peace Health discuss preventing harm through root cause analysis (RCA) and examine the link between RCA and an organization’s Lean Improvement Strategy.

Dec 18, 202320:13
86. The Mistakes that Make Us

86. The Mistakes that Make Us

Mark Graban joins us to talk about his book, The Mistakes that Make Us, which focuses on how to learn from mistakes and create a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

Dec 04, 202327:22
85. The Better Care Plan

85. The Better Care Plan

Dr. John Toussaint, Catalysis’ Executive Board Chair and Steve Shortell, Co-Founder of the Center for Lean Engagement and Research (CLEAR) at the University of California – Berkley, join us to discuss the content of the article they helped write, "The Better Care Plan: A Blueprint for Improving America’s Healthcare System." This article explores how to transition the current fee-for-service system in America to a risk-adjusted payment system with increased transparency on performance to continuously improve outcomes.

Oct 30, 202336:23
84. Making Change Stick

84. Making Change Stick

Amy Mervak and Mike Radtke, faculty of the workshop, Making Change Stick, focus on the many hidden factors that can be barriers to individual and organizational change efforts, how to make these factors visible, and address them.

Oct 09, 202335:04
83. Community Health Network RCA Process

83. Community Health Network RCA Process

Ginger Breeck, Executive Director of Patient Safety & Experience at the Community Health Network in Indiana, shares about Community Health's work to develop a strong and supportive process for Root Cause Analysis, or RCA.

Sep 18, 202331:54
82. Spreading Learning in Nigeria

82. Spreading Learning in Nigeria

Adam Thompson and Aisha Amira Saidu, of EHA Clinics in Nigeria, Africa share how they are using a variety of non-traditional resources to encourage everyone in their organization to see themselves as part of improvement and lean.


Aug 21, 202336:08
81. The Lean Management System in Action

81. The Lean Management System in Action

Pam Helander, Catalysis faculty, shares about the pilot workshop, Lean Management System in Action, that Catalysis held at Mount Sinai Morningside in New York City.

Aug 07, 202315:44
80. University Emergency Department Redesign

80. University Emergency Department Redesign

Todd Fischer, Ian Wedgwood, Ken Shanahan, and Krystal Cassanelli from the University Campus of UMass Memorial Health describe the redesign of their Emergency Department (ED) to streamline the flow for patient discharge.

Jul 24, 202314:40
79. UW Medicine, Valley Medical Center Improvement Idea Program

79. UW Medicine, Valley Medical Center Improvement Idea Program

Jamie Stilwill and Kristine Nicholson, from the University of Washington, Valley Medical Center in Renton, Washington, share about their Improvement idea program that has been in place for 6 years.

Jul 10, 202332:22
78. Transitioning to healthcare improvement from other industries

78. Transitioning to healthcare improvement from other industries

Kim Keller, Mary Ghaly Akella, and Shelcy Kamrud, from Mount Sinai Morningside, join us to share about their experiences transitioning to healthcare from continuous improvement roles within other industries.

Jun 26, 202333:08
77. Digital Integration and Workflow Design

77. Digital Integration and Workflow Design

Elizabeth Howe, Director of Performance Excellence at Duke University Health System in North Carolina, explains the process that Duke followed to introduce a Workflow Redesign and Digital Integration as part of their Digital Front Door to streamline the patient intake process.

Jun 12, 202319:42
76. A Long Transformational Journey at Trinity Muscatine

76. A Long Transformational Journey at Trinity Muscatine

Hear from Glenda Reichert, a Performance Improvement Analyst with UnityPoint Health at Trinity in Muscatine, Iowa, who has been part of the Catalysis community for many years. Glenda shares about how Trinity continues to review and apply shared learnings from Catalysis in their work.

May 29, 202320:38
75. Hosting a Gemba Visit

75. Hosting a Gemba Visit

Rachel DeMaster, Director, Care Improvement & Innovation and Kristy Consoli, Administrative Specialist, Care Improvement and Innovation Services from Montage Health located in Monterey, CA join us to talk about their experience and learnings from hosting a recent Gemba visit for fellow Catalysis Healthcare Value Network members.

May 15, 202325:44
74. Critical Pathways

74. Critical Pathways

Kellie Olmstead, Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer at Nemours Children's Health in Jacksonville, Florida joins us to describe the Clinical Pathways improvement work and progress made at Nemours.

May 01, 202318:46
73. Getting the Board Involved

73. Getting the Board Involved

John Toussaint, MD, Executive Chairman of the Catalysis Board of Directors, explains the importance of healthcare organizations engaging the Board of Directors in improvement work.

Apr 03, 202321:46
72. Daily Management System Spread and Sustainment

72. Daily Management System Spread and Sustainment

How do you spread and sustain improvement work as an organization? Being able to successfully respond to this challenge is vital to an organization’s success. In this episode we are joined by Kim Keller, Mary Ghaly Akella, and Shelcy Kamrud, from Mount Sinai Morningside, one of our Catalysis Healthcare Value Network members, to discuss their approach and experience implementing a Daily Management System.

This team will also be teaching a Pre-Summit workshop “Prioritize Your Process: Tactics to Improve, Spread and Sustain Daily Management” at our annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit in Chicago this June. To learn more about their workshop, visit createvalue.org/summit.

Mar 20, 202330:10
71. Innovative Problem Solving through Collaboration

71. Innovative Problem Solving through Collaboration

Effective problem solving is foundational in a culture of continuous improvement. Today we are joined by Catalysis faculty member, Jenn Christison, to hear about the role collaboration plays in supporting more innovative problem solving. Jenn will delve even further into this topic during her Pre-Summit workshop “Engaging Your Teams in Collaborative Process Design” in Chicago this June. Please go to createvalue.org/summit to learn more.

Mar 08, 202319:16
70. Helsinki University Hospital – Self-Assessment Instrument

70. Helsinki University Hospital – Self-Assessment Instrument

Elina Reponen, MD, Ph.D., Chief Anesthesiologist at the Helsinki University Hospital, shares with us about her experience in Finland using the self-assessment instrument for Lean implementation in a healthcare system that was developed by CLEAR (the Center for Lean Engagement and Research). 

Feb 20, 202322:09
69. Addressing Discharge Barriers at UMass

69. Addressing Discharge Barriers at UMass

Kevin Reynolds, Radiology Technologist and Senior Clinical Quality Manager, and Liz Trumble, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with the Center for Innovation and Transformational Change, from UMass Memorial Health discuss their improvement work on patient discharge barriers. For additional information, see their recently published white paper "Discharge Barriers Escalation (Radiology): Easy Access to Information and EHR Messaging Platform Reduce Discharge Delays" on createvalue.org under Resources and White Papers.

Feb 06, 202329:11
68. Reflections on Lean in Healthcare: Insights for the Future

68. Reflections on Lean in Healthcare: Insights for the Future

Dr. Lisa Yerian, a Surgical Pathologist and Chief Improvement Officer at the Cleveland Clinic shares her thoughts about the impact of lean in healthcare.

Jan 23, 202326:53
67. Learning Lean Implementation in Healthcare

67. Learning Lean Implementation in Healthcare

Donna Litwinski, Executive Director of the Lean Resource Office with the Memorial Care Health System in Fountain Valley, California shares some of her reflections on improvement and what she sees ahead.

Jan 09, 202317:39
66. Objectives and Key Results

66. Objectives and Key Results

Sarah Sydlowski, Associate Chief Improvement Officer, and Melissa Vandergriff, Continuous Improvement Director from the Cleveland Clinic join us to share about the value and use of Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs.

Dec 12, 202238:42
65. How to Translate New Learnings to Actionable Plans

65. How to Translate New Learnings to Actionable Plans

Alli Kulp, Todd Schneider, and Emily Swaney join us from OhioHealth, one of our Catalysis Healthcare Value Network member organizations. They took the opportunity to send a group to the 2022 Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit and share about the process they created to categorize and prioritize their team’s takeaways and learnings to ensure they got the most out of the event.

Nov 28, 202225:51
64. Reflections on a Career of Improvement

64. Reflections on a Career of Improvement

Walter Bilgram, the now retired former Vice President of Operational Excellence at BJC Healthcare in Missouri shares his thoughts and reflections on his career and over 30 years of work in quality and improvement.

Nov 14, 202224:10
63. Psychological Barriers to Problem-Solving and Agility in Healthcare

63. Psychological Barriers to Problem-Solving and Agility in Healthcare

Dr. Pierre-Luc Fournier, Professor of Operations Management at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, and a contributor to our partner CLEAR (the Center for Lean Engagement and Research) at the University of California – Berkley School of Public Health, shares about the results of a study done on the psychological barriers to problem-solving and agility in healthcare.

Oct 31, 202235:02
62. New Care Model Development

62. New Care Model Development

Pete Knox and Ted Toussaint from Prospect3 share about their work with health system leaders to accelerate their journey to population health by redesigning primary care and building internal capability for redesign and new care model development.

Oct 17, 202224:24
61. Closing the Loop at Intermountain Healthcare

61. Closing the Loop at Intermountain Healthcare

Matt Pollard, a former ER doctor and now Vice President of Continuous Improvement at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City discusses the importance of closing the loop and constant diligence in maintaining and examining your systems to keep them moving forward.

Oct 03, 202239:01
60. UMass Memorial’s Operating Room Preference Card Optimization Project

60. UMass Memorial’s Operating Room Preference Card Optimization Project

We hear from the team from UMass Memorial Health System about their operating room preference cards improvement project.

Sep 19, 202225:32
59. Lean Management IS your Quality-PI-Safety-Risk Management Program

59. Lean Management IS your Quality-PI-Safety-Risk Management Program

Dr. Lee Erickson, Senior VP & Chief Quality Officer with Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts shares about Integrated Daily Management Systems and Tiered huddles and how they are all interconnected to improve all outcomes. 

Sep 06, 202231:32
58. How to Build a Better Boat and Keep it Afloat

58. How to Build a Better Boat and Keep it Afloat

We are joined by Jeannine Grinnell, CEO of UW Medicine – Valley Medical Center, who presented a keynote at the 2022 Catalysis Lean Healthcare Summit, sharing about their journey and work to “build a better boat.”

Aug 22, 202220:54
57. Adapting Huddles for a Hybrid Remote World

57. Adapting Huddles for a Hybrid Remote World

Daily huddles are an important element in a lean management system. Shelcy Kamrud and Natalie Bergstrom, from Mount Sinai Morningside, share with us about how they implemented and adapted their daily huddle standard to their Patient Care Liaison team, virtually.

Aug 08, 202236:44
56. Adding a Higher Tiered Non-Clinical Huddle

56. Adding a Higher Tiered Non-Clinical Huddle

Kim Brown and Beau Gostomsky, from Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, join us to talk about how they have implemented and learned from huddles for Shared Services leaders.

Jul 25, 202222:44
55. Learnings from Using Leader Standard Work

55. Learnings from Using Leader Standard Work

Dr. Mike Conroy, Chief Medical Officer for Sutter Medical Group in Sacramento, shares how he uses leader standard work and what he has learned. Leader standard work has been a big topic of conversation throughout the Catalysis community because it helps us stay focused on what matters most.

Jul 11, 202215:02
54. How a Buddy System Supports Personal Development

54. How a Buddy System Supports Personal Development

Don Shilton, Executive Coach with Catalysis, explains how healthcare executives he is coaching have been utilizing a buddy system to help them with personal development.

Jun 27, 202221:05
53. What the RaDonda Vaught Case Teaches Us About Culture’s Influence on Patient Safety

53. What the RaDonda Vaught Case Teaches Us About Culture’s Influence on Patient Safety

We are joined by Ken Segel from Value Capture, to reflect on the impact of RaDonda Vaught’s conviction on healthcare. Ken co-authored an article with John Toussaint, “4 Actions to Reduce Medical Errors in US Hospitals,” that was recently published in Harvard Business Review.

May 16, 202229:08
52. Using the Model Cell Approach to Lean Implementation

52. Using the Model Cell Approach to Lean Implementation

Model cells are test centers in an organization to experiment with new ideas and provide the opportunity to showcase what’s possible to the rest of the organization. Julie Williams, Operational Innovation Specialist at Nebraska Methodist Health System, shares with us about the model cell work they have done at Methodist Health System.

May 02, 202211:28
51. Avoiding the Plan-Do-Study-Abandon Cycle

51. Avoiding the Plan-Do-Study-Abandon Cycle

Mike Radtke, Catalysis faculty, talks with us about effective coaching and experimentation in problem solving.

Apr 18, 202225:04
50. How to Align People in Your Organization with Top Priorities to Create Patient Value

50. How to Align People in Your Organization with Top Priorities to Create Patient Value

Strategy is about making choices to create unique and relevant value for patients under conditions of uncertainty and competition. Making choices reduces overburden. Following the voice of the customer creates a unique, differentiated value proposition. Aligning resources around the top priorities reduces confusion. And the use of rapid learning cycles in the deployment of those priorities enables organizational agility. A system using visual management and standard work compels people at every level in the organization to contribute to the most important priorities as defined by patients. Jeff Hunter discusses using visual management of strategy deployment. 

Apr 11, 202219:54
49. Using Kata to Engage Team Members

49. Using Kata to Engage Team Members

Kata is a pattern or routine that serves as a guide to proficiency and expertise. Bill Boyd, Catalysis faculty, explains the use of kata in healthcare and how it engages team members in rapid cycles of experimentation.

Apr 04, 202215:56
48. How Coaching Can Support Culture Transformation

48. How Coaching Can Support Culture Transformation

As your organization matures on the journey to organizational excellence the function of the improvement team evolves from project-based facilitation to supporting leaders through culture transformation. Today I am joined by Catalysis staff and faculty to discuss the importance of building coaching capability within your PI team.

If you are looking to develop you coaching skills check out our virtual workshop, Building Coaching Capabilities: Transforming Your Improvement Team at createvaleu.org/coachingcapabilities or check out our full list of upcoming workshops at createvalue.org/workshops.

Mar 22, 202233:36
47. Value-based Care in the Home and Community

47. Value-based Care in the Home and Community

In the last two years, healthcare delivery has gone through a significant evolution. Telehealth services that were once rare, became the predominant method. In addition, with the growth of technology, other work is being done to deliver care at home or outside of the traditional setting of a hospital or clinic. We are joined by Patrick Conway, the CEO of Care Solutions at Optum to talk about this  innovative work to provide patient care.

Mar 07, 202223:34
46. Improving Outcomes Using Data

46. Improving Outcomes Using Data

Data is important to driving improvement work. It is not always easy to access the right information or to analyze it in a way that can be used to create real, sustainable change. In 2019, Dr. Dan Low, from Seattle Children’s Hospital, presented a learning session on how they were using data to improve outcomes. He joins us on the podcast to discuss how every patient can make the system smarter when it comes to data collection.

Feb 21, 202229:05
45. Innovation at Akron Children’s Hospital

45. Innovation at Akron Children’s Hospital

Stefan Agamanolis, Chief Innovation Officer, and Mike Antochow, Operational Excellence and Innovation Leader, from Akron Children’s Hospital talk about work in their Innovation Center. Akron Children’s Hospital is a member of the Catalysis Healthcare Value Network and recently shared a case study about work in a sharing session open to other members.

Feb 07, 202220:33
44. The Impact of Leader Standard Work

44. The Impact of Leader Standard Work

Trevor Hall, Vice President of Human Resources, Communications, Continuous Improvement and Appeals at Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board, talks about the value of leader standard work, specifically the impact of leader standard work when starting a new role.

Jan 24, 202213:46
43. Process Confirmation Integrated with Daily Management System

43. Process Confirmation Integrated with Daily Management System

We are joined by a team of nurses and CI staff from Michigan Medicine to discuss how they have been using process observation, or process confirmation as they like to call it, as a tool for problem-solving within their management system.

Jan 10, 202215:58
42. Academic Research on Managing through a Pandemic The Lens

42. Academic Research on Managing through a Pandemic The Lens

Dr. Dorothy Hung, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Lean Engagement & Research at the University of California - Berkley (CLEAR) joins The Lens  to discuss recent research CLEAR completed through interviews with healthcare leaders on the benefits of using a Daily Management System during the pandemic. CLEAR is a partner of Catalysis in providing objective academic research in the application of Lean in Healthcare.

Dec 13, 202115:21