Healthcare Value Leaders Network
Our initial Healthcare Value Leaders Network, established in June 2009, consists of 24 member organizations that have joined to collaborate and share their lean methods and experiences. The goal of the network is to accelerate each organization's "lean journey," allowing each member to progress more quickly and more effectively than they could on their own. These organizations share a commitment to becoming lean and to helping others in healthcare become lean, as well. The size of the network is designed to be the optimal size for collaboration, allowing trust to be built to allow open sharing of what is working and what is not working in each organization's lean efforts.
From each network member organization, active participants include C-level executives, physician and clinical leaders, administrators from all levels, and lean facilitators.
Our network's activities focus on:
- Gemba Learning: conducting structured visits each year at different member sites, with a focus on seeing actual improvement work first hand (learn more)
- Measurement: developing consistent measures of hospital value creation and improvements driven by lean
- Assessment: creating a standard assessment methodology for helping an organization gauge how they are progressing in their lean journey
- Education: fostering peer-to-peer relationships and learning through online collaboration
- Public Policy: informing government and political leaders about lean and how public policy can help support healthcare value
Our aim is to share the network's activities and results on our website (www.healthcarevalueleaders.org) to help create a case for the further expansion of lean concepts in healthcare.
As more healthcare organizations join our effort, we will form additional networks. The LEI/ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value partnership will oversee the coordination and sharing, as appropriate, across networks - forming a "network of networks."