Joining me for episode #201 are Ron Smith, a Process Improvement Coordinator/Lean Facilitator at Mary Greeley Medical Center (in Iowa) and Suz Kaprich, a consultant with KaiNexus (disclosure: I'm on the management team of KaiNexus and have an ownership stake in the company). Today, they are talking about a three-month "WorkOut" process that Ron and Suz ran recently at the hospital. Given the challenges in today's healthcare environment, the focus was on cost reduction and financial benefits, but they of course made improvements to the timeliness and quality of patient care, as well. The total financial impact, validated by finance, was about $800,000 in that time. The goal was not just to drive short-term improvements, but to also demonstrate how improvement was possible... to help spark a culture of ongoing continuous improvement. Through the course of the WorkOut, Mary Greeley Medical Center used the KaiNexus web-based software platform to facilitate and track their improvements and results and they remain a customer of KaiNexus for their ongoing improvement efforts. For a link to this episode, refer people to www.leanblog.org/201. For earlier episodes of the Lean Blog Podcast, visit the main Podcast page at www.leancast.org, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple iTunes.