Kaizen is a Japanese for “improvement.” When used in the business sense and applied to healthcare, Kaizen refers to activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the house keepers. For what ever reason front-line employees in healthcare are a bit apprehensive to approach physicians. No one wants to tell a physician about process improvement, safety, or efficiency. Kaizen is another Lean tool that is created to take a part a process and improve it for the good. This is accomplished by involving everyone.

Here are some proven suggestions:

• Make sure the event truly impacts to the patient…no pet peeve initiatives.
• Make sure during your Kaizen the use of tools such as 5Y, process maps, value stream maps, and baseline statistical data is being shared and reviewed.
• Truly define the problem with real data no anecdotal information, but rather data that you have gathered and processes that you have seen.
• Make sure the physicians understand the impact that your making for them and the patient .be strong and committed to your cause. Demand respect at all time because your there for the patient at the end of the day.
• Listen to the physician’s points of view from end to end of the process, let them explain their normal process. Be leave it or not, not all physicians understand Lean. Listen to their voice. The bible says be quick to listen. I call physicians,” competitive scientists”.  Invoke some competition.
• Ask the physician for their help as a team member to solve the problem, you want them as a part of the campaign, not as a walk bye expert.
• Be honest and brave, stop thinking that physicians are the, “devil’, they really do care!