Murray Mandryk, political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and Janet French, reporter for the Star Phoenix, in conversation with Dan Florizone (Deputy Minister of Education) and Saskatchewan health professionals.
I wonder if LEAN has powerup cards like Pokemon? If so, can @dustin_duncan and @Pr could save money faster? http://t.co/VhDjq0iqep #skpoli
— Murray Mandryk (@MMandryk) March 13, 2014
But read the whole stream. It gets better.
Reference: Introduction to Lean
Lean.org
Lean News blog (from Saskatchewan Health Care)
I read the description at the link, but still have no idea what the hell “lean” actually means.
Maybe that was the object?
It’s what Jack Spratt’s wife couldn’t eat.
“Undisclosed sources” … The Onion’s “Area Man”
Kate, the link you have isn’t right, I looked at gov.sk. but it’s not real helpful.
So,
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Lean+poor+Sask+health+care/9475193/story.html
The merits of Lean is another discussion. I was more interested in Mandryk’s open rejection of anyone who was in support or invited him to learn more. He has a column in the can, you know.
hence: “area man”
.. The link works now, I don’t know if you changed it or if it’s the new internet.
Nobody wants to be the one who has to ask Murray to re-write.
Let me see now… Is the time spent determining whether an activity is “productive” or not, in the language of LEAN, deemed to be itself “productive” or not?
What’s that bird that flies ’round and ’round, in ever-decreasing circles, until it flies up its own backside?
Wherever there are unions, there will be waste. Almost like it’s a law or something.
Speaking of health, if Madryk was healed by Jesus Christ himself he’d declare there was some kind of political motivation involved.
Until hospitals are funded 100% by fees for services without any block funding, it will be a financial cesspool. If bureaucrats are forced to compete with each other and private clinics to build their empires, efficiencies might enter the system.
Block funded means patients are using their precious funds. Fees for service means patients are the source of funds. Maybe then the Nurse Ratchets of the world might be shown the door.
Its true, Scar. Unfettered capitalism is rather tough on overweight, bad tempered women who suck at their jobs and spend all their time at work surfing ebay.
With block funding, hospitals have little to no motivation to actually treat the patient. With funding following the patient they will find the incentive to have MRI’s and operating rooms available around the clock. The argument in not allowing private clinics is that money would go to greedy corporations that own the clinics. Well, if a surgery is determined to be worth $3000, whether done in a public hospital or a private clinic in a single payer system, and the owners of the clinic can make a profit within that, what’s the problem? As long as safety and patient care isn’t diminished competition would force improvement across the board.
“if Madryk was healed by Jesus Christ himself he’d declare there was some kind of political motivation involved.”
Ah, Murray Mandryk. There are numerous reasons for cancelling my StarPhoenix subscription a few years ago, but Mandryk’s left-leaning, drivel-ridden column was by far the largest contributor.
He once stated that a “hidden agenda” by a right-leaning government was far more insidious than that of a left-leaning one. That made absolutely no sense whatsoever and, fortunately for him, he was not asked to explain himself.
Murray Mandrake is a 3rd or 4th rate hack, at best. Even as a totally predictable anti-Wall NDP attack dog, Mandrake the Minuscule has only a teeny tiny following and considerably less credibility. Nobody who is anybody takes him seriously. Ignore him and let him continue to have the mighty Mandrake “mosquitoes in winter” impact that he had on Saskatchewan politics before he tried this attention getting stunt. Spoiler alert: the NDP will take up his mantra and bang their pots loudly but it will blow over short order if we do not respond to the troll and his masters. Give him the attention he deserves, which is to say, none whatsoever.
biffjr and EyesWideShut, well said.
Murryay is not my moral or intellectual superior. He is nothing but an NDP hack and has been for decades.
Having read Mr Mandryk’s column regarding LEAN, I am impressed with questions he asks…they need to be asked again and again in hope that repetition will produce real answers and not more “LEAN” speak. Perhaps the LEAN folks could build a KAISAN session around this. I am deep enough in the system to know that LEAN, so far, is offering improvements and some small efficiencies…but the cost has been far greater than it would have been if skilled mangers had the ability to run their operations without politics.
Having Hollywood as your social benchmark.Is a kin to living in a neighbourhood that has a bottle recycling business. Many Pawn shops, with a few broken down saloons.Plus an injection site for junkies, with a homeless shelter.
LEAN, Let me start off by saying that I am a big fan of Brad wall. This lean thing is a real joke. My wife works at a hospital and says a waste of money. There is one place only to cut in the Health System. It is management. This group of over paid pencil pushers are sucking up millions of dollars doing pretty much nothing. A group of people that thinks up ways to spend tax dollars on useless crap with little to do with getting grandma a much needed hip operation. Mora Davies, CEO of District health makes 2 times what our premier makes. This for running a non profit health agency.
dj said: “There is one place only to cut in the Health System. It is management.”
Oh. My. Ghod. YES! Ontario hospitals are absolutely stuffed with all sorts of non-contributing bodies who troop in to work every day and write up new policy memos that supersede previous policy memos, and more/better/different/new paperwork to replace the more/better/different/old paperwork.
Basically anytime anyone says the words “continuous quality improvement” you should punch them in the face. CQI is just one more flaky buzz phrase cooked up by some consulting company to beat up the people who actually DO the work, doctors and nurses.
Its the manufacturing model improperly applied to medicine. Hospitals are not factories, patients are not products, doctors are not engineers.
Florence Nightingale understood medicine. None of these management gurus has a clue.
Even the mentally-challenged need jobs. Unfortunately, many of them have found high paying work in the main stream media and have been given megaphones.
Some people think that the plural of ‘anecdote’ is ‘evidence’ and that the absence of evidence clearly indicates proof. How else can you explain UFO kooks, bigfoot hunters and CAGW believers?
Detractors seem to be missing the point. Efficiencies doesn’t mean cuts per se. It could result in improved inventory control, or reduced wait times, or reduced errors, or improved srrvice.
Like many large, bureaucratic institutions, the health care system is rife with established protocols at a cultural level, many that work and many that don’t. It’s not enough to say that it’s management’s fault or front-line worker’s fault. The issue here are those processes, why they exist and how they could change to fit the LEAN model.
That’s the tie-in with manufacturers. Every business creates a product or service, and processes are required to do this. There’s no reason that the health care system cannot apply the LEAN principles as well.
It will definitely be a challenge, and this could end up being a waste of money, but for “journalsts” like Mandryk to dismissively and rudely write off the project before it begins seems myopic, to say the least.
…established protocols at a cultural level…and how they could change to fit the LEAN model…
There’s something vaguely familiar about this; perhaps if it were to be called “Leanism”…
The plural of anecdote is evidence.
This is common in educational research. It explains why Saskatchewn have a math program that is not based on any empirical reaseach. I spent some time with consultant implementing a program in Prairie Spirit School Division. She gave me three sources of studies to back up her work. Every one of them dealt with extrapolation from interaction with an individual student. I have not been able to find one scientific study to support what is happening to Sask. students.