I was speaking with the head of Service Improvement in a major University Hospital about Rapid Improvement Events (RIE). We were discussing the fact that many people either don't understand the difference between Value Stream Mapping/Analysis and RIEs or they are stuck with a rigid RIE model (ie 'An RIE must always be 5 days long').

I sometimes get a request asking if we can run an RIE on X, Y, Z of the month from someone who has heard of Lean and who has been advised that the right approach is 5 Days and who does not understand that this is the road to failure.

If you have read other material from Amnis either on this blog or from our newletter or other communications you will know that we focus our Lean Healthcare efforts on not only improving Organisational Effectiveness but also on using it to improve Patient Safety, Patient Experience and Clinical Outcomes.

I was chatting to one of the Change Agents within one of the clients we are working with this week and we were discussing the fact that he was struggling to engage his line manager in the process.

The programme is being driven from the board of the organisation and the line manager was part of establishing the team but has never really engaged with the process and it is having a very negative effect on the Change Agent who says he is thinking of giving up being involved in the programme.