INTERVIEW – By bringing organizations together to regularly share updates on their lean journeys, Instituto Lean Management has managed to create a flourishing lean healthcare community in Catalunya. But hospitals aren't the only ones benefitting.

By: Oriol Cuatrecasas, President, Instituto Lean Management - Barcelona

In the past few years, the lean healthcare community in and around Barcelona has been growing and growing. These days, most hospitals in the area have some kind of lean initiative in place, and I am sure more will join in.

What's interesting about our experience is that it all started with one successful example, the lean transformation of the Consorci Sanitari del Garraf, which has then become a model for other healthcare organizations in the Catalan healthcare system. We at the Instituto Lean Management were lucky enough to observe Garraf in their incredible evolution (which happened as the economic crisis cut healthcare budgets all around the world). Since then, as many others take the leap across Spain, every time we start to work with a new healthcare organization, we take people to see Garraf and other experienced hospitals and encourage them to share their questions and lessons learned.

More recently, we have started to organize day-long "follow the learner" events that bring together several hospitals, but also organizations operating in other sectors (as you know, the principles are the same and there is no doubt they apply to any kind of human endeavor). We just ask them to share. We call this "cross-fertilization", and the benefits this has brought have been fantastic. We encourage you to organize similar events in your organization or region.

In the video below, some of the participants of a recent event will tell you about their experience learning from one another.

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