A few months back, many of us read that executives at Virginia Mason Medical Center sent a bunch of executives to Toyota's plant in Japan to study their Kaizen model of continuous improvement.

Initially, I heard that some physicians revolted at the idea of learning from a car manufacterer. "What can we learn here? We deal with people, they deal with cars." However, after spending two weeks there, the same physician recanted, saying, "Toyota treats their cars better than we treat our patients."

From the Washington Post Article, Virginia Mason Medical Center reported these results:

Whether making a car or a healthier patient, the approach fundamentally is about eliminating waste -- from paperwork and inventory to waiting-room delays and extraneous surgical tools. Four years after he made his first trip to study under Japanese "sensei," or teacher, Chihiro Nakao, Virginia Mason chief executive Gary S. Kaplan points to measures of success few American hospitals can boast.

In adopting the Toyota mind-set, Kaplan said, the 350-bed hospital has saved $6 million in planned capital investment, freed 13,000 square feet of space, cut inventory costs by $360,000, reduced staff walking by 34 miles a day, shortened bill-collection times, slashed infection rates, spun off a new business and, perhaps most important, improved patient satisfaction.

Read how this hospital applied Kaizen to their ER, reducing patient wait time to depart after service by 71%. You start getting a sense of what Kaizen is all about - it seems very common sense, yet few seem to think this way simply because things have always been done a certain way.