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Healthcare in Australia and around the world faces significant challenges with increasing demand from an ageing population, increasing complexity and pressure on resources and costs. In response, many organisations have successfully improved processes to benefit patients and healthcare workers. This page contains some case studies to highlight progress in redesigning healthcare.

• The critical need for lean and innovation in healthcare today – an article by Gene Lindsey, MD, the president and CEO of Atrius Health
• Best in healthcare getting better with lean – article on improvement at the Mayo clinic in the US.  An American friend of mine who works in process improvement described his health checks at the Mayo clinic.  His visits are planned and executed with minimal waiting and high quality.  This article discusses improvements in cardiovascular care.
• Making hospitals work (6.3mb) – webinar presentation from LEI showing an A3 & VSM approach to improvement
• Healthcare improvement map – a useful tool from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement with ideas for over 70 processes.
• IHC (US website) – some interesting information on Lean in healthcare. Check out “Lean in Health Care” under the “Toolkits” menu.
• Healthcare value leaders – link to US website
• Australasian Lean Healthcare Network – link to website
• Lean thinking for the NHS (0.5mb) – report from NHS Confederation
• Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital – video of Lean implementation
• Fighting cancer with linear accelerators and accelerated processes (1.7mb) – case study from the Lean Enterprise Institute
• How to use Value Stream Mapping to improve healthcare processes – article on NHS UK Institute for Innovation and Improvement website
• The Flinders journey into a Lean future (0.6mb) – presentation by Prof David Ben-Tovim on progress at the Flinders Medical Centre
• The ThedaCare Improvement System (1.4mb) – presentation by John Toussaint
• Pushing forward the frontiers of Lean healthcare (0.1mb) – presentation by Dan Jones, Lean Enterprise Academy
• Creating Lean Healthcare – email from Jim Womack, Lean Enterprise Institute

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