Going Lean: Health and the Toyota Way
Dr Kevin Fong visits a public hospital in the US to discover how the principles of lean management is affecting patient care.
In the third programme in the series, Dr Kevin Fong explores the concept of ‘lean’ in healthcare. He visits Toyota’s largest car assembly plant in the United States and discovers how the company’s legendary management philosophy – the Toyota Production System – is being implemented in hospitals, in an effort to improve patient care. Toyota’s philosophy of continuous improvement aims to increase quality and flow whilst decreasing cost. But whilst this may work well for the mass production of cars, can it really improve the care of individual patients?
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Clips
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How did Japan’s unique work culture come about?
Duration: 02:18
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Some organisations do the craziest things for no reason
Duration: 01:34
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How we stopped patients going blind while they wait
Duration: 00:49
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How Toyota produces one vehicle every fifty-two seconds
Duration: 01:52
Learn more with The Open University
To find out more about how the NHS has been trying to sustain success through a culture of improvement and learning from failures, visit OpenLearn, the home of free learning from The Open University.
Broadcasts
- Mon 25 Jul 201621:32GMTBBC World Service except East and Southern Africa & News Internet
- Tue 26 Jul 201601:32GMTBBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean
- Tue 26 Jul 201602:32GMTBBC World Service Online, Europe and the Middle East & UK DAB/Freeview only
- Tue 26 Jul 201603:32GMTBBC World Service East Asia & South Asia only
- Tue 26 Jul 201604:32GMTBBC World Service Australasia
- Tue 26 Jul 201606:32GMTBBC World Service East and Southern Africa & Europe and the Middle East only
- Tue 26 Jul 201614:32GMTBBC World Service except News Internet
The Truth About Cancer Podcast
Examining the strategies being taken globally to tackle the world's biggest killer
Podcast
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The Truth About...
A crucial guide to the things that affect us all. Hear from those with first-hand experience, and experts in the field.
