The Lean Journey (and Mass Vaccination Sites) at Munson Healthcare: Kaleb Foss and Butch Bowlby

C.I. manager and pharmacy system director, Munson Healthcare

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/418

My guests for Episode #418 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast both work for Munson Healthcare in northern Michigan. They are Kaleb Foss, Continuous Improvement department manager, and Butch Bowlby, the system director of Pharmacy.

In this episode, we'll hear about their “Lean origin stories” and we'll hear about the approach to Lean and continuous improvement at Munson. We'll also take a fairly deep dive into the setup of their mass vaccination site (which they set up for employees with just six days' notice!).

Topics, questions, and links related to today's episode include:

• Tell us a little about Munson Healthcare
• What are your Lean origin stories? How did you get exposed to Lean and why is it important to you?
• How would describe the approach to Lean or CI at Munson?
• What does that idea of transformation and a management / operating system mean to you, Butch?
• How would you describe some of the benefits or results that you've seen at Munson Healthcare?
  • Cultural indicators & language, root cause
  • Patient safety
  • Staff safety, psychological safety
• Tell us about the challenge of setting up mass vaccination clinics
• Looking at Zero Waste vs. Zero Harm goals
• Why was standard work and evolving that SW so important?
• Why and how has that focus shifted away from mass sites? What have you done to design a process for that?
• Why and how has the focus shifted away from mass sites? What have you done to design a process for that?
• What comes next for you and Munson??

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