How Leadership Commitment & a Systematic Approach Spread Improvement in Healthcare

From Executive Alignment to Daily Improvement: A Real-World Healthcare Case Study

What does it truly take to build a culture where improvement happens every day — not just during special projects?

In this case study webinar, leaders from Mary Greeley Medical Center share how leadership commitment, structured methodology, and frontline engagement helped transform their organization’s improvement culture.

Instead of relying on suggestion boxes or isolated Lean events, Mary Greeley built a disciplined system that connects strategy, leadership behaviors, and daily improvement work — resulting in measurable operational and financial impact.

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What You’ll Learn

• Why leadership commitment must come first — before tools or software
• How to train and align leaders to support sustainable improvement
• The difference between suggestion boxes and true daily improvement systems
• How to coach leaders to develop employee problem-solving capability
• Why small, incremental improvements create large organizational impact
• How to prevent sub-optimization across departments
• Lessons learned from engaging more than 70% of employees in improvement
• How to measure impact: cost savings, time savings, and implementation rates

The Mary Greeley Journey

Mary Greeley Medical Center, a 220-bed acute care hospital in Ames, Iowa, began its Lean journey in 2009 with a clear focus: create a sustainable culture of improvement centered on patients.

Their transformation included:

• Leadership Yellow Belt training for 60+ leaders
• Hands-on 6S projects to build practical experience
• A Standard Work Steering Committee to prioritize critical processes
• Value Stream Mapping and Rapid Improvement Events targeting high-risk workflows
• A 100-Day Workout that generated over $700,000 in hard savings
• Launching a Daily Improvement program engaging 1,300 employees

Rather than stopping at project-based improvement, they shifted toward managing for daily improvement — embedding improvement into everyone’s job.

From Projects to Culture

Many organizations run successful events but struggle to spread improvement.

Mary Greeley discovered that:

• Large events create momentum
• Leadership alignment creates stability
• Daily improvement creates culture

By coaching leaders to coach employees — instead of solving every problem themselves — they built capability at every level of the organization.

Results & Impact

Since launching their structured improvement system:

• 70%+ of employees logged into the improvement system
• Hundreds of daily improvements completed
• Significant labor hours saved
• Measurable hard-dollar cost savings
• Increased employee engagement in problem solving

Most importantly, improvement became part of daily work — not an extra task.

Who Should Watch

This webinar is ideal for:

• Healthcare executives and senior leaders
• Quality and patient safety professionals
• Lean and operational excellence teams
• Managers responsible for culture change
• Organizations looking to move beyond suggestion programs

About the Presenters

Karen Kiel-Rosser

Vice President & Chief Quality Officer
Mary Greeley Medical Center

Karen led the organization’s Lean transformation efforts and helped align leadership around a systematic improvement framework.

Ron Smith

Process Improvement Coordinator
Mary Greeley Medical Center

Ron supports leaders and frontline staff in implementing daily improvement practices and spreading Lean methodology across the organization.

Start Building a Culture of Daily Improvement

If you’re looking to move beyond isolated improvement projects and build a system that engages every employee in improving their work, this webinar provides a practical, real-world roadmap.

Watch now to learn how leadership commitment and a systematic approach can spread improvement across your organization.