In today's healthcare landscape, lean principles are crucial for addressing issues like patient safety, wait times, medical errors, cost reduction, and staff efficiency, aiming to improve patient outcomes and create a more efficient and patient-centered system. The methodologies are crucial because they help improve efficiency, reduce waste, enhance patient safety and quality of care, and ultimately lower costs by focusing on continuous improvement and streamlining processes.

Through interviews with a leading healthcare executive, this book relates the journey of learning and growth as shared through storytelling, reflecting, and releasing tested wisdom. She describes how her organization grew into and mastered respect for people and process/system improvement to critically and substantially impact the business case of their organizations. By fostering a culture of continuous improvement, this Great Lean Leader unfolds her truths for how her organization got to sustainable success—and continues the relentless pursuit of value creation and outlines the lessons learned on how to unlock a multitude of benefits, propelling organizations toward excellence.

The book is designed to provide several reference points for reading and learning about the what’s, why’s and how’s of Lean Leadership. The chapters are realistic and represent stories shared with authenticity and transparency based on two interviews of the Lean Leader. Each chapter has four sections: an overview of the interview, a referenced section of three Lean Leadership strategies and tactics and three benefits, a summary of observed Lean Leadership competencies, and links to the interviews and transcripts of the interviews. A final summary chapter is based on a group panel session and contains a detailed summary of intensive interviews, along with a set of detailed teaching lessons. A description of lean and lean tools is scattered throughout the book to add relevance and expand the readers knowledge of lean methodologies.