Dr Kevin Fong explores the concept of ‘lean’ in healthcare. 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? bbc 
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-low/proto/http/vpid/p042jw6m.mp3 Going Lean: Health and the Toyota Way, Success and Failure in Medicine. BBC World Service.
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Our upscale methods are built on these same principles and our professional work has more in common with doctors than automakers so of course I am interested. Tomorrow I will read again the upscale handbook and try to figure out how it is failing us.