Many industries face an unprecedented amount of pressure to perform against conflicting expectations in ever-changing environments. In healthcare, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fact that many working professionals and leaders failed to act in a productive, cohesive manner to prevent costly mistakes. Today, the COVID-19 economic impact is estimated at over $16 trillion¹ with an even larger, unquantifiable negative impact on the public’s mental health² . Healthcare is known to be an industry of importance for the world.

As such, hospitals and health systems often make up the largest employers of communities. They also deal with incredible scrutiny in how care is provided which varies by country and care delivery models (i.e., government-controlled vs privately funded and operated). Because health and well-being directly impact socioeconomics, politics exist and laws are created that aim to protect communities from fraud while also promoting and supporting the use of fair and safe healthcare standards. Finally, there is the complications of disease and injury to contemplate and how those variables impact governments, communities, and individuals.

All of this taken into consideration presents a completely different level of complexity to factor into why Lean Six Sigma and change management philosophies require a unique and tailored approach by healthcare professionals. What we have learned from the manufacturing industry is that transformation requires Lean, Six Sigma, and cultural acceptance and cohesive cooperation to yield successes. Taiichi Ohno, Toyota’s face to the Toyota Production System (TPS), notes throughout his philosophies that entire teams are to be trained and engaged in living new standards and applying those standards to day-to-day processes for a company to be successful. It was the engineers and front-line workers as well as process managers and internal consultants who contributed to Toyota’s day to day problem-solving success.

Corporate leaders also needed to believe, invest, and support the changes as well. This is the crux of why we are so passionate about what we do at Magnified Learning^TM. Our team has spent years in the healthcare industry having been part of both successful and not-so-successful transformation endeavors. We have been actively engaged in the industry, seen the tremendous positive impacts it can have on the lives of patients and their families when there is alignment throughout an organization, but have also seen the downsides of what can happen when processes fail, when there is misalignment between executives and frontline clinicians, and the added stress it can have on caregivers and the people we are trying to serve.

Healthcare is in our DNA, and we understand the importance of driving engagement through all caregivers in an organization through a holistic and cohesive approach. This is why we created the Cohesive Value Transformation^TM model.

1. JAMA Network
2. Institute For Progress
3. Elsevier – Clinician of the Future 2022 Report