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Connecting the Dots

Chasing Yokoten at Cleveland Clinic with Tony Blamer

Aug 17, 2023
Tony Blamer, Senior Director of Continuous Improvement at the Cleveland Clinic, discusses the importance of empathy and understanding in applying improvement principles in healthcare. The podcast also explores the value of a decentralized model in healthcare and highlights success stories in reducing stroke care time and adopting new applications for better organization.
30:25

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Yokoten refers to deploying improvement concepts and ideas horizontally across an organization, facilitating the spread of best practices.
  • Cleveland Clinic employs a decentralized continuous improvement team structure, combining standard processes and tailored engagement to spread improvement practices.

Deep dives

Chasing Yolkatin: Deploying Concepts and Ideas Horizontally

In this episode, Tony Blamer from Cleveland Clinic discusses the concept of Yolkatin, which refers to deploying concepts and ideas horizontally across a company. Tony shares his background in manufacturing and transition to healthcare. The main challenge in spreading improvement practices in healthcare is the need for empathy and the recognition that one size does not fit all. Cleveland Clinic employs a decentralized continuous improvement team structure, combining standard processes and tailored engagement to spread improvement practices. They use one-pagers to capture the value of improvement activities, which are then shared during monthly impact summits for all staff involved in continuous improvement. Success stories include improving door-to-needle times for stroke patients and engaging front-line caregivers in making improvements.

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