Lean Blog Interviews — 23: Group Health Cooperative

Episode #23 of the LeanBlog Podcast features a panel of Lean leaders from the Group Health Cooperative (www.ghc.org), a consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. Based in Seattle, Group Health and its subsidiary health carriers, Group Health Options, Inc. and KPS Health Plans, serve over 500,000 members in Washington and Idaho. GHC has been on a Lean journey, as documented on their “Daily Kaizen” blog (www.dailykaizen.org). Joining us on the Podcast are three of their Lean Leaders: * James Hereford, Executive Vice President, Strategic Services and Quality * Dr. Ted Eyan, Medical Director of Health Informatics and Web Services * Lee Fried, Manager of the Strategic Consulting team at Group Health In this Podcast, they discuss how GHC got started with Lean, their early “point improvement” succeses, and their transition to a more systemic approach to a Lean management system through their “model line” efforts. If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at podcast@leanblog.org or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the “Lean Line” at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id “mgraban”. Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast. Click here for the main LeanBlog Podcast page (www.leanpodcast.org) with all previous episodes.