For close to 20 years, I have been successfully solving problems for orga-
nizations, resulting in substantial cost savings and increased customer sat-
isfaction. The credit goes to the leaders in the organizations I worked with
who realized the value of training employees how to be more efficient and
effective by incorporating the this mindset and technique into their orga-
nizations.
Although quality improvement is now my full-time occupation, I didn't
learn these things just to perform my current role of quality leader/trainer. I
learned these things to perform all the roles I have held prior to this job. In
other words, I was not trained so the organization could be in the business
of quality: I was trained to improve the quality of the business.
According to Institute of Medicine (IOM) in a report titled: To Err is Hu-
man: Building a Safer Health System, the majority of medical errors are not
the result of individual recklessness. Instead, the report finds, errors are
caused by faulty systems, processes, and conditions that lead people to
make mistakes or fail to prevent them.
Fixing systems, processes, and conditions requires employees to have a
toolbox within reach. If you have a toolbox at home, I suspect that it is filled
with many different types of tools that may fit different situations. Some-
times we need a hammer, other times a wrench or a screwdriver will do the
job. The same holds true for the type of toolbox we need at work. Many of
the quality improvement tools have been tried and tested over a handful of
decades. We know they work. You just need to equip the organization with
problem solvers that know how to use them.
Improvement is not something to fear. It is something to embrace and
enjoy. Below are two of my favorite techniques and tools to identify risks,
defects, variation (the enemy of quality), and waste.
3 0 0 B R I C K S T O N E S Q U A R E • S U I T E 2 0 1 • A N D O V E R , M A 0 1 8 1 0 | P H O N E : 9 7 8 . 6 4 9 . 8 2 0 0 | W W W . C O R P E D G R O U P . C O M
M I N D S E T T E C H N I Q U E
Proactively (versus reactively) look
at systems and processes for risk.
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis
(FMEA)
Identify and use the correct
problem-solving structure for
the situation.
DMAIC or Kaizen Event
The majority of
medical errors are
not the result of
individual reckless-
ness, but by faulty
systems, process-
es, and conditions
that lead people
to make mistakes
or fail to prevent
them.
To Err is Human: Building a
Safer Health System
Institute of Medicine (IOM)
M I N D S E T A N D T O O L S E T S F O R P R O B L E M - S O L V I N G I N H E A L T H C A R E
