Change Management Tips

Lean is an ongoing journey, not a destination. It offers the greatest rewards to healthcare organizations that sustain the long-term commitment, support, and enthusiasm of everyone from the CEO to front-line staff.

These selected tips, based on our PSG Lean healthcare curriculum, will help ensure a rewarding process for all involved:

• Before attempting any change, use observation and Lean tools to develop a deep understanding of the current process.
• Consider frontline staff the resident experts. They are best suited to evaluate and redesign the work processes.
• Explore issues from the point of view of the patient.
• Redesign work processes using the scientific method. Each change is an experiment, and each experiment may lead to new experiments.
• Assure frontline staff of a safe and supportive atmosphere for experimentation. Any issues that arise are seen as opportunities for further learning.
• Minimize meetings and workflow disruptions. Collaborate on problem solving in the course of daily work.