Between two and three children out of every 1,000 live births are estimated to have cerebral palsy (CP) – a permanent disability caused by brain damage that impairs movement and posture. The prevalence of CP is thought to be higher in resource-constrained settings: in many African countries, for instance, the limited access to healthcare and […]
The Residential Housing team, within the Healthy Families, Healthy Homes section of Public Health Inspections (PHI), discovered the process for closing out a complaint investigation was taking too long and the investigators’ volume of work was starting to reach unsustainable levels. The team used highly specific data that showed which kinds of cases were taking […]
Written by Brion
New York state, with assistance from Toyota’s TSSC group, made its government more responsive and efficient through an innovative approach — quickly becoming a role model for other state governments. They were able to reduce findings from 7.3 to 3.7, and time to issue certificates from 137 to 28 days. They also reduced day care […]
Written by Brion
From 2009 to 2010, the State of Arizona’s SNAP caseload increase was ranked 5th in the nation. During this time, the state had to eliminate 300 eligibility positions due to budget cuts. The Department of Economic Security (DES) joined with Change & Innovation Agency (C!A) and analyzed the agency’s most important eligibility practices to determine […]
Written by Brion
Ziqitza Health Care Limited, a social enterprise in India that provides ambulance services, aims to make those services accessible to all segments of society. But for the first 10 years of its history, Ziqitza lacked reliable data on who its customers were and on whether it was reaching the poorest people in its areas of […]
Written by Brion
Dorian Long shares her first exposure with Lean when she participated in a Lean kaizen event working to streamline the Medicare Waiver program. She enjoyed visualizing the process maps to expose the waste, and how the event increased employee engagement for the social workers. She also saw commonality with Lean and how they perform social […]
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Laurie Ann Wagner from the Connecticut Department of Social Services helped start their lean project in 2012. She learned about Lean methods, but also noticed some similarities to previous improvement methods she was familiar with, so it came easy to her. One of the first problems they tackled was realizing that forms were redundant across […]
Written by Brion
Marcus Hammarberg from Salvation Army Health was asked to help an Indonesian hospital get back on its feet after 5 years of decline, and he used Kanban boards as a core structure to the success they had. Their operating permit was in temporary status, they weren’t making enough money to cover costs, and they were […]
Written by Brion
The Connecticut Department of Public Health is working to create a culture of Quality. They have researched all the national standards that are applicable to residents in the state (such as the Centers for Disease Control and Environmental Protection Agency), and created a list of performance measures that they are trying to achieve. The actual […]
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Social work was selected as the Model Value Stream (showcase) for the Department of Social Services (DSS). They decided to develop a program called Social Work Kata, which helps them quantify the work they do (more qualitative into quantitative data), prepare for changes in work being done to help with lack of resources, and ultimately […]
Written by Brion