Mark Graban has been part of the KaiNexus team longer than anyone beside the co-founders Greg and Matt, and has been a huge contributor to the ideological foundation of the KaiNexus continuous improvement software.

As an internationally-recognized expert in the field of “Lean Healthcare” and the author of LeanBlog.org and author of the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award winning book Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement, it's no wonder he's regarded as our in-house Lean expert!

Watch this video to hear Mark talk about the shared vision that drew him to KaiNexus.

In this video:

I joined the team at KaiNexus for a number of reasons, but one is this incredible shared commitment and passion around continuous improvement. If you look within our team, we have such a wide array of people - a doctor, an engineer, software professionals, people with sales and marketing backgrounds - and everyone has that commitment to not just helping our customers improve, but really driving continuous improvement as we build a company.

I think one of the other most important things is the shared vision around the role of technology in supporting kaizen, lean, and continuous improvement, especially in large, multi-site organizations, whether that’s a ten hospital health system or a global manufacturing company.

When we ask questions about how we share ideas, how we get people to communicate, how we tabulate results, and how we share the improvements that have happened, bulletin boards just won’t do that. Relying on email and spreadsheets is clunky. Having a platform like KaiNexus that uses technology to create visibility and facilitate collaboration is something that is very powerful, and something that I’m really happy to be a part of.

About Mark:

Mark graduated from Northwestern University in 1995 with a BS in Industrial Engineering and later earned an MS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He is author of two Shingo Research Award-winning books, and has worked as a consultant to healthcare organizations throughout North America and Europe, teaching and implementing kaizen and other Lean management practices.

He was previously a Senior Fellow with the Lean Enterprise Institute and the Healthcare Value Network and continues as an LEI faculty member. Mark is also the founder of the popular LeanBlog.org and its podcast series.