How Lean Can Help Deliver Social Justice While Boosting Quality Health Care

By Alice Lee and Kiame Mahaniah, MD

January 20, 2020

In this podcast, developed from a talk at the 2018 Lean Transformation Summit learn how the Lynn Community Health Center is building successors by turning a recent leadership transition into a catalyst for improvement.

 

Too often, a change in executive leadership can bring a lean transformation to a grinding halt. But that has not been the case at Lynn Community Health Center (LCHC). LCHC is located 10 miles from downtown Boston, in the economically, culturally, and socially diverse city of Lynn. It is a small but mighty healthcare center serving more than 40,000 patients representing 113 countries and 72 languages – of which over 90 percent live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. To conquer the challenges of serving this vibrant community, LEI has worked with LCHC to create a model primary-care clinic powered by lean. In doing this, LCHC hopes to better serve its customers (and employees!) by tackling wait times and achieving increasingly higher levels of productivity. In this podcast, developed from a talk at the 2018 Lean Transformation Summit by LCHC CEO Kiame Mahaniah, and introduced by LEI Executive Director Alice Lee, learn how LCHC is building successors by turning a leadership transition into a catalyst for improvement. You’ll hear from the two CEOs that exchanged the baton, and find out how they ensured that lean efforts would continue. What did the outgoing CEO do to ensure the continuation of lean thinking? What made the incoming CEO realize that lean thinking truly was the way for everyone?