Mark Graban writes frequently on Lean management, healthcare improvement, psychological safety, and leadership. His articles have been published in leading industry journals, academic publications, and business media, including IndustryWeek, Quality Digest, BMJ Open Quality, Becker’s Hospital Review, and more.
- I write frequently on my blog — www.LeanBlog.org
- I also write (or have written) sometimes on
- the KaiNexus blog,
- LinkedIn,
- the Value Capture Blog,
- and The Lean Post.
Most Recent:
- Shingo Institute, “Psychological Safety: The Foundation for Lean and Continuous Improvement,” April 2025.
- IndustryWeek, “Boeing Executives Failed to Lead, Waved Off Lean,” April 2024.
- Quality Digest, “Stop Spending Money on Problem-Solving Training; Focus on psychological safety instead,” September 2023
- BMJ Open Quality, “Applying Lean principles to create a high throughput mass COVID-19 vaccination site,” February 2022.
- Becker's Hospital Review, “Every Healthcare Organization Needs Champions of Change to Make Supply Chain Improvements – At All Levels,” October 2017.
- Becker's Hospital Review, “Champions of Change Make the Difference at Franciscan Health,” November 2017.
- Becker's Hospital Review, “Why a Better Hospital Supply Chain Starts with Better Relationships,” March 2018.
- Corporate Event News, “Using Metrics To Determine If Our Events Are Really Improving Or Not,” December 2018
- RealLeaders™, “Measures Matter, but Make Sure Your Success is Real, not Fake,” May 2019
- Recruiter.com, “Younger Workers Crave Instant Gratification. Here’s How to Give It to Them Without Causing Distraction,” November 2019
- International Journal for Quality in Health Care, “Lean: breaking down barriers for the sake of improvement” — Volume 31, Issue Supplement_1, December 2019, Pages 1–2
- CFO.com, “Break the Bad Habit of Overreacting to Metrics,” January 2020
- Recruiter.com, “Here Is the Single Least Productive Thing You Still Make Your Employees Do,” February 2020
- GoLeanSixSigma.com, “How Lean Six Sigma Can Help Fight the Coronavirus Pandemic,” April 2020 (contributor)
Older Articles:
(articles without links are no longer online)
- ChangeThis Manifesto, “How Toyota Can Save Your Life… At The Hospital,” March 2007.
- Society for Manufacturing Engineers Lean Yearbook 2007, “Riverside Medical Center Puts Lean in the Laboratory,” July 2007 (PDF).
- Society for Manufacturing Engineers Lean Yearbook 2008, with Lewis Lefteroff, “Lean and Process Excellence at Kingston General,” July 2008 (PDF).
- LAB Medicine Journal, with Shana Padgett, “Lean Laboratories: Competing with Methods From Toyota,” July 2007.
- Lean in Healthcare Overview, at LeanCEO.com, January 2008.
- TWI News, “Training Within Healthcare, It is just as relevant in 2009 as it was in 1944,” January 2009 (PDF).
- Journal of Hospital Medicine, “Hospitalists: Lean Leaders for Hospitals,” July/August 2010 (PDF).
- FierceHealthcare.com, “How lean management helped hospitals avoid layoffs,” October 2010.
- Hospital Voice (Oregon Hospital Association), with Mike Orzen, “How lean thinking and mindsets support the Triple Aim,” February 2011.
- Global Business and Organizational Excellence, with Jim Adams, “CMCD’s lab draws on academics, automakers, and therapists to realize its own vision of excellence,” April 2011 (PDF).
- For the Record, with Rob Harding, “Lean Management: Thin Is In,” April 2011.
- Quality Digest, with Gregory Jacobson, MD, “Putting the ‘Continuous’ Back into Health Care Improvement,” August 2011.
- Article, Hospitals & Health Networks, with Rob Harding, “Cut Costs by Reducing Redundant or Inefficient Activity,” August 2011 (related article)
- Quality Digest, “Improving Health Care Quality Through Signs or Systems?,” December 2011.
- Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry, “Hospital Delivery Robots: Solving a Problem or Pushing a New Market Opportunity?,” March 2012.
- Quality Digest, “To Better Protect Patients, Health Care Needs More ‘Lean Thinking’,” April 2012.
- The Reporter (Vacaville, CA), “Scared to Death: Worry about hospital errors, not pink slime,” May 2012.
- Texas Healthcare News, “Kaizen: An Exotic Word, Common Sense Principles for Healthcare,” June 2012.
- Internal Medicine News, “Lean in a Land of ACOs and Health Reform,” July 2012.
- BusinessExcellence, “Lean thinking in healthcare,” August 2012.
- Becker's Hospital Review, “Lean as an Alternative to Mass Layoffs in Healthcare,” September 2012.
- ExecutiveInsight, “Instituting a Culture of Continuous Improvement,” September 2012.
- Six Sigma Forum Magazine (ASQ), with Joe Swartz, “Healthcare Kaizen: Daily Continuous Improvement, From Hypothesis to Proven Practice,” November 2012.
- 24×7 Mag, “To Fix Health Care, We Need More “Kaizen,” January 2013.
- Global Business and Organizational Excellence, “Sharing Improvements in Health Care Processes Saves Lives at Franciscan Alliance,” April 2013.
- ASQ Lean Enterprise Division Newsletter, “A Visit to Two Japanese Hospitals “Leaning” Toward Lean,” December 2013 (read blog version)
- Industrial Engineer Magazine, “Good Change: Using kaizen toward a culture of continuous improvement humanizes the healthcare workforce for better outcomes,” February 2014 (cover story).
- Global Business and Organizational Excellence, with Greg Clancy, “Engaging Staff as Problem Solvers Leads to Continuous Improvement at Allina Health,” September 2014 (PDF).
- “Kaizen in Healthcare” – Chapter contributed to the book Management Innovations for Healthcare Organizations: Adopt, Abandon or Adapt? (Routledge Studies in the Management of Voluntary and Non-Profit Organizations), December 2015.
- Catalysis White Paper, with Dr. John Toussaint and Dr. Jack Billi, “Lean for Doctors“