NEWS

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Second Healthcare Network Created to Spread Lean Principles

The organizations forming the second Network are:

• Akron Children's Hospital, Akron, OH
• Alberta Health Services, Edmonton, Alberta
• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA
• BJC Healthcare, St. Louis, MO
• Christie Clinic, Champaign, IL
• Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, Boston, MA
• Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
• Provena Covenant Medical Center, Urbana, IL
• Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA
• St. Joseph Health System, Orange, CA

A list of the first Network's members is at: http://healthcarevalueleaders.org/currentmembers.cfm

Network Goals

The Networks engage healthcare professionals in the U.S. and Canada in learning how to improve healthcare by applying lean principles of continuous improvement and process redesign. Such techniques produced remarkable quality and productivity improvements at North American manufacturers over the last 30 years.

The goals of the Networks for the healthcare industry are to:

• Improve safety, quality, and efficiency in the delivery of care.
• Document best practices for lean transformations.
• Create a common definition of value in healthcare.
• Create common measures for performance comparison.

Joining the Healthcare Value Leaders Network

Network benefits include: collaboration on the Network's web site; access to a common assessment tool for measuring progress; education about leading an organizational transformation; site visits; an annual conference, the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit (http://www.lean.org/Events/2010_lean_hc_transformation_summit.cfm)

To learn more about joining, go to: http://healthcarevalueleaders.org/leadersnetwork/howtojoin.cfm or visit the main site at http://www.healthcarevalueleaders.org/

Read the complete news release at:

http://www.lean.org/WhoWeAre/LEINewsStory.cfm?NewsArticleId=113

Lean Enterprise Institute

Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc., was founded in 1997 by management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., as a nonprofit research, education, publishing, and conference company with a mission to advance lean thinking around the world. Learn more at www.lean.org.

ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value

The ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value is a not-for profit with a mission to change care delivery and payment incentives to reward the best performers on quality and cost and to build and facilitate learning networks of healthcare providers. Learn more at: www.createhealthcarevalue.com/

LEI
Chet Marchwinski, 617-871-2930
cmarchwinski@lean.org