by Ted Eytan, on 07 Jun 2006 10:00 am
The Journey
GM
Popularity: 6%
It’s day 3. General Motors is speaking. They pay for 1 percent of the health care delivered in the U.S. They say that they’ve conducted 400 kaizen events in hospitals to improve efficiency.
It’s clear from the talk that health care purchasers are a force to be reckoned with. At the same time, the question arises about how this can be reconciled with GM’s performance in LEAN and as a company in general.
It also raises the question about the purchaser/health care provider relationship. In a LEAN world, a message sent that is “we need to put pressure on health care” doesn’t seem productive. What would Toyota do?