ABSTRACT
The Baptist Health System in San Antonio, Texas began its Lean journey in 2008 and has implemented a management system that consists of four fundamental components: performance, process, people, and plans. While they may be deployed at various times and vary in their strength, they support each other, and together they strengthen the Lean management system and therefore the organization. At Baptist, our Lean management system developed organically, around an end goal sought by CEO of having a structure of continuous improvement that engaged more individuals throughout the organization. A great way to earn support was to expose the power of a rapid cycle improvement event that would have enough impact to gain traction and endorsement for further development of the management system. LDM requires a significant amount of leadership support to deploy and even more for continued sustainment.
