Habitual Excellence — 70: Dr. David Zaas on Lean Management Systems in Healthcare

CEO for the MUSC Health Charleston Division and the chief clinical officer for MUSC Health.

Welcome to Episode #70 of Habitual Excellence, presented by Value Capture.

Joining us today as our guest is David Zaas, MD, MBA. Heis the chief executive officer for the MUSC Health Charleston Division and the chief clinical officer for MUSC Health.

Dr. David Zaas is a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician with an interest in advanced lung diseases and lung transplantation. Dr. Zaas’s research interests have focused on improving outcomes from lung transplantation including the role of infectious complication and organ rejection. Dr. Zaas is also actively engaged in the education of students and graduate trainees as well as a leader in hospital administration.

Dr. Zaas graduated from Yale University in 1994.

He completed his medical degree at Northwestern University in 1998 and did his internship and residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He completed his fellowship training at Duke in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine in 2005.

He formerly served as medical director for lung transplantation at Duke. Dr. Zaas joined the MUSC faculty in 2020 and he is a professor of medicine at MUSC.

In today’s episode, Dr. Zaas talks with host Mark Graban, about topics and questions including:

  • If a lean management system is the solution, lets talk first about the problem statements that make an LMS necessary and helpful… what is the biggest pain point or problem?
  • How has that problem statement evolved with Covid?
  • The mistake of jumping in – can be compassionate about that…
  • “How do we develop trust… absolutely critical…”
  • Tips for starting to build trust — can’t just order people to trust you?
  • “Wish we had started it earlier…”
  • How do you define a Lean management system – what are the major components?
  • “Help chain” — tell us more about what that means and how that works…
  • “Long standing commitment to just culture”
  • Zero harm as a goal – articulating that in an inspiring way?
  • How do you incorporate goals and values around diversity and inclusion? How do you SHOW that treat everybody with dignity and respect?
  • How do the right mindsets, principles, and behaviors influence the actions of leaders in a LMS?
  • How does the LMS affect your workforce?
  • How does it help develop people?
  • What’s your biggest lesson learned about LMS? Something you would have done differently? — evolution and improvement