Sustaining Lean in Healthcare: Developing and Engaging Physician Leadership

Among the first books to focus on physician engagement during a Lean effort, Sustaining Lean in Healthcare: Developing and Engaging Physician Leadership explains how to ensure ongoing physician participation long after the consultant leaves. Dr. Michael Nelson, an early adopter of Lean in healthcare, explains how to use these synergic tools to achieve consistently high levels of quality and clinical care outcomes.


The book begins with a Lean primer that provides a firm foundation in essential Lean concepts—including value stream maps, 6S, Kanban, Heijunka, and Gemba Walks. Next, it examines how to create a physician engagement plan and covers the specific responsibilities of physician leadership through the Lean transformation. Explaining what to look for when judging success, it provides numerous examples that demonstrate how to sustain success over the long term.


Complete with tips for spotting the danger signs that might indicate your plan is off course, this book details time-tested techniques and strategies for reducing waste in healthcare. It supplies a methodology for establishing shared expectations of success with your medical team early on in the process, as well as a proven framework for simultaneous Lean deployment across multiple locations.

Praise for the book:

In this book , Dr. Nelson draws on his forty years of medical practice and his experience as an early adopter of Lean for healthcare, to identify a crucial piece to aligning healthcare organizations for success; Physician Engagement. … Healthcare executives and clinicians will appreciate and learn from Dr. Nelson’s insight.
—Robert Iversen, Director, Accenture Management Consulting


…Instead of writing another how-to book, Mike has taken the opportunity to provide insights that are sure to help any healthcare organization sustain the impact of its Lean engagement.
—Rick Malik, Worldwide Director, ValuMetrix® Services, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics


… provides realistic estimates of timelines for projects, expected satisfaction, quality, and financial paybacks, as well as the time commitments required for Lean healthcare initiatives to become durable successes.
—David Mann, PhD, Principal, David Mann Lean Consulting


… simplifies and organizes the steps needed to effectively and successfully take advantage of the significant contributions Lean management can make … .
—Edward D. Martin, MD, Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Martin Blanck & Associates, Inc.


Lean has become a critical predictor of successful systems going forward. Sustaining Lean in Healthcare is the book to get this done.
—Stephen C. Beeson MD, Author of Engaging Physicians, A Manual to Physician Partnership