Thoughts on My Virginia Mason Experience Nicholas Mascoli, MD

Thoughts on My Virginia Mason
Experience
Nicholas Mascoli, MD
Newton-Wellesley Internists
Things We Did Right Away
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Set up and used a flow station
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Started to huddle
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Involve as many staff as possible
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Emphasize the importance of everyone’s ideas and
encourage feedback from everyone at all levels of the
practice
Write out a plan of goals- create flow stations/start work on
standard work. Keep the momentum to make changes alive
Waste walk and look for 5S opportunities, such as
standardizing what is in each room
Old MA Station
Hallway—Limited Space
Physician’s Space
Our Microwave Counter
New Flow Station #1
Old Lab Area
Flow Station #2
Flow Station #3
Barriers
ƒ Changing a culture- getting agreement and buy-in
ƒ Changing roles/responsibilities caused worry and
uncertainty among staff
ƒ Money
ƒ Time/construction
ƒ Maintaining momentum to change
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Reflections
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Change is hard. Acknowledge that right from the start, then
commit to make changes that make sense for your practice
and situation
Your idea does not have to be perfect before implementing
it
• Take the opportunity to learn and think about your practice
in a way you often just don’t have time to, with your MA/staff
with you
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Take the knowledge and see how you want to apply it.
Make a list of goals and work on it regularly, so the inertia
you get from the program is not lost
VM will emphasize kaizen as ‘continuous quality
improvement’, we need to take that same approach to
achieve continuous practice improvement