Virginia Mason Institute’s Top 10 Posts of 2016
We’ve had a great year! Health care leaders from all over the world participated in our tours and our lean courses in Seattle, attended our regional training event in Philadelphia, invited us to speak at international conferences, engaged with us in social media and welcomed us into their clinics and hospitals in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Throughout it all, executives, physicians, nurses and other leaders asked us questions about how to succeed with change management, energize a hardworking staff and improve safety, quality and efficiency. Our experts at Virginia Mason Institute answered many of these questions through our website posts and webinars, and now we want to highlight the posts that drew the most readers and provoked the most engagement.
Thank you for being a part of this year-long conversation with us as we work with you to achieve zero-defect health care for patients everywhere.
1. How Health Care Leaders Can Stop Medical Errors
In this interview taken from executives’ questions in Europe, the Americas and Australasia, Kirsten Mecklenburg Turner explains what it takes for health care executives to implement a culture of inclusiveness and empowerment.
A Q&A with Kirsten Mecklenburg Turner, MBA, executive sensei and director at Virginia Mason Institute
March 23, 2016
2. How Can Lean Improvement Work Engage Staff and Reduce Costs?
Responding to questions at speaking engagements in the United Kingdom and in our training facility in Seattle, Cathie Furman discusses how Virginia Mason measures ROI during its lean improvement work and how talent development fits into the equation.
A Q&A with Cathie Furman, RN, MHA, executive faculty member at Virginia Mason Institute
May 24, 2016
3. Webinar: What Does It Take to Lead Culture Change? The Executive’s Role
In our most popular webinar of the year, Diane Miller answers questions about culture change from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and more.
A Q&A with Diane Miller, MBA, vice president at Virginia Mason, executive director and executive sensei at Virginia Mason Institute
December 02, 2016
4. How Can Standardizing Surgery Tools Prevent Adverse Events?
In our most shared post on LinkedIn, Rosemary King — a founding member of Virginia Mason’s Kaizen Promotion Office and former leader in perioperative services — describes the hard work that Virginia Mason’s surgeons and staff undertook to make surgery safer and more timely for patients.
By Rosemary King, MHA, RN, faculty member at Virginia Mason Institute
February 25, 2016
5. What Is the Cost of Not Having a Strategic Improvement Method?
In this interview, Ellen Noel describes how Virginia Mason’s team responded when the distraught mother of a stroke patient told them, “If the hospital and I were married, we’d be getting a divorce.”
A Q&A with Ellen Noel, MN, RN, CPHQ, faculty member at Virginia Mason Institute
April 27, 2016
6. How a Medication Error Spurred Team Engagement, Innovation and Patient Safety
In this widely read article, Virginia Mason’s pharmacy team and Virginia Mason Institute’s faculty member Megan McIntyre describe how a never event mobilized a team to create patient-centered innovations to prevent such an error from ever causing harm again.
A Virginia Mason Institute case study
May 26, 2016
7. How Lean Health Care Improves Quality, Values Staff and Reduces Cost
In one answer to those who asked how to improve staff engagement and lower costs, Erica Cumbee discusses how using root-cause analysis and PDSA cycles can help teams achieve accurate blood pressure readings the first time, every time.
By Erica Cumbee, MPA, faculty member at Virginia Mason Institute
April 22, 2016
8. Getting Closer to Continuous Flow in Health Care
In our response to physicians’ questions in Creating Flow in the Ambulatory Setting, one of our most popular courses, readers learn what to say to colleagues who are discouraged from trying to improve quality and who repeatedly , “It’s always this way. Nothing can be done.”
By Virginia Mason Institute
March 16, 2016
9. How Eliminating Health Care Waste Improves Sepsis Recognition and More
In this interview, Megan McIntyre looks at how a motivated nursing team created the unique Sepsis Nurse Initiated Protocol to empower nurses to begin evidence-based sepsis treatment for their patients — with accuracy, speed and confidence.
A Q&A with Megan McIntyre, PharmD, MHA, CPHQ, faculty member at Virginia Mason Institute
July 26, 2016
10. How Can a Kanban System Improve Health Care?
In his response to international health care leaders’ questions about improving supply-chain efficiency, lean expert and sensei Marlon Borbon explains the concept of kanban and recommends the best way to give staff the supplies they need, just when they need them.
By Marlon Borbon, PT, MBA, LSSBB, sensei at Virginia Mason Institute
January 20, 2016
