A Seattle hospital ran itself like the Toyota line and the errors showed themselves

the problem

Patients moved in batches, and so did mistakes

the move

Adopted the Toyota Production System for clinical flow — smaller patient batches, standard work, andon-style stop-the-line for safety signals.

the payoff

Became the reference case for lean healthcare, with sustained gains in safety metrics and capacity.

filed under

Small batches

was it genius?

same kind of clever

• 1969 · ToyotaToyota shrank every batch until defects had nowhere to hide
• 1985 · Haier (Zhang Ruimin)Haier's new director had workers smash 76 flawed fridges instead of quietly selling them as seconds
• 2010 · EtsyEtsy shipped code dozens of times a day so no single release could sink the site