Patients visit Virginia Mason more than one million times each year. Founded in 1920, Virginia Mason Medical Center (VM) is a private, non-profit academic medical center, offering a comprehensive regional healthcare system in the greater Puget Sound area. VM combines a primary and specialty care group practice of nearly 480 physicians, with a 336-bed acute care hospital in Seattle. Primary care has long been a money-losing area of healthcare and often a good year means breaking even. General Internal Medicine (GIM) unit at Virginia Mason Medical Center (VM) was in the red for 34 years, when the team used Virginia Mason Production System principles (adopted from the Toyota Production System) to realign its work and focus on improving the flow of patient care. The changes allowed the GIM unit to see more patients during shorter work days. Doctors who previously stayed until 8 p.m. doing paperwork, now leave the clinic no later than 6 p.m. The turnaround time for lab results also improved from 25 days for normal results to two or fewer days. For the first time in 34 years, the team achieved a positive net margin of $310,000 in 2007. Hear how Virginia Mason increased patient satisfaction, by reducing wait times and increasing the quality of the visit. Find out how they removed valueless activities, how they created predictability in their work day, and how they increased staff satisfaction by reducing the burden of work, fostering a team environment. Learn how VM improved the economic performance of its practice.

Identifying waste and creating a vision for flow.