• Quality Guru Chosen to Head CMS

    Quality Guru Chosen to Head CMS

    Donald Berwick, a Harvard University professor and leading advocate for improving health-care quality and efficiency, has been named by President Obama as his choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS.) Berwick is well-known in Quality circles for aggressively advocating quality improvement in healthcare. Berwick, who specializes in health-care policy and pediatrics,…

  • Pyzdek’s Pyramid of Success

    PCI take a “no bull” approach to Six Sigma. We believe that you take Six Sigma seriously, and so do we. We bring professionals to your organization, not cowboys who claim to know more about your business than you do. Our approach is based on a deep understanding Six Sigma gleaned from the lessons we’ve…

  • Boosting Customer Value by Eliminating Non-value Activities

    Many companies are investing significant effort into having their employees work harder to create more value for their customers, always striving to stay competitive. However, upon reflection, it’s clear that employees are already working diligently. Indeed, they’re engaged 99% of the time, striving to excel in their roles. The key challenge for a modern company…

  • Bailed Out Automakers Produce Worst Quality On The Road

    Forbes.com reports that six of the seven worst cars on the road are produced by either GM or Chrysler Corporation, the two auto companies which received billions of dollars in government bailout funds. Sadly, the seventh car on the list is also American made, a Ford product. GM has experienced a surge in sales in…

  • Medical Missteps: Case of a Nonexistent Pregnancy

    Recently, a case was reviewed by the North Carolina Medical Board where a group of medical practitioners performed labor induction and a Caesarean section on a woman, only to find there was no baby present. The case, as reported by Foxnews.com, revealed that the patient had been convinced she was pregnant and managed to convince…

  • NASA Admits Its Climate Data Quality Is No Better

    Fox News reports that e-mail messages obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) — the scandalized source of the leaked Climate-gate e-mails — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric…

  • The Seven Types of Waste in Lean

    The Seven Types of Waste in Lean

    I have written several articles about the seven types of waste in Lean. Here’s a comprehensive list of these wastes, along with brief descriptions. The Seven Types of Waste

  • Standard Diabetes Treatment Makes Things Worse

    Ready-Fire-Aim. Once again the healthcare profession finally gets around to looking at data, only to discover that it is actually harming patients by treating them. The Los Angeles Times reports that a major nationwide trial called ACCORD released Sunday show that lowering either blood pressure or cholesterol levels below current guidelines do not provide additional benefit…

  • Unreliable Prostate Test Costs Billions

    The person who discovered the test used to screen 30 million American men for prostate cancer, the prostate-specific-antigen or PSA test, says the test is a hugely expensive healthcare disaster. “I discovered P.S.A. in 1970. As Congress searches for ways to cut costs in our health care system, a significant savings could come from changing…

  • Wikipedia Entry Quality Causes Assessed

    Two researchers at the University of Arizona performed a study to determine why some Wikipedia articles rate high in terms of quality, while others score lower. Eller College of Management Professor Sudha Ram and Jun Liu, a graduate student, have found that entries on Wikipedia – the world’s largest open-access online encyclopedia – gain greater…

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