The Field Guide to Rapid Process Improvement Workshops in Healthcare: Applying Lean to Improve Quality and Patient Experience

This book takes the reader through the process to plan, deliver, and follow-up a one week long Lean Quality Improvement event, usually termed a 'Rapid Improvement Event' or 'Rapid Process Improvement Workshop.' Drawing on the experience of conducting over 100 of these workshops, the book gives readers the information to plan and run their own event. It describes how RPIWs fit in to wider improvement processes, and how the reader can maximize these processes in their own organization

These week-long improvement events are popular in health and social care, but there are no textbooks available to support them. There are several books with describe the use of shorter Kaizen events in health care, but none that describe the process of delivering the one-week long events. The events have a rhythm specific to the one-week format, and the book seeks to help people to make use of best practice, and to avoid common problems.

Based on the experiences of authors, the book includes an introduction to Lean concepts, linked to the relevant part of the process description, includes examples and templates of forms that can be used in workshops, and includes photographs of actual events.