A couple weeks ago a consultant friend of mine, who coincidentally focuses his practice on lean in healthcare, was complaining about issues with his healthcare providers. It’s a story we hear often: doctors running late, very short and often superficial consultations, a rush to diagnosis, and a bias toward additional services like surgery that they happen to provide—and profit from. They may be great doctors, but the quality of care, patient experience, and even outcome is not great.

This is also something my wife and I haven’t experienced for several years.

I have a fantastic local primary doctor. He’s brilliant and could easily have a high-end specialty practice that would earn him multiples of what he probably makes now, but he decided early on that he’d like to help as many people as possible by being a general practitioner. He’s a medical geek at heart, and almost a decade ago when I had an uncertain diagnosis (which thankfully turned out to be a nonissue), he suggested I go up to Stanford to see a specialist to be evaluated by what was then a new technology. That experience changed how we consume healthcare, and taught me a lot about how organizations can create value for customers.

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