In this book, Dr. Gabow, former CEO of Denver Health of 20 years, teams up with Philip Goodman, a 34-year veteran of Denver Health who directed the Lean System group, to share their Lean journey. The Lean Prescription: Powerful Medicine for Our Ailing Healthcare System tells the story of how Dr. Gabow led Denver Health to become the first healthcare organization to be awarded the Shingo Bronze Medallion Prize for Operational Excellence.

Detailing the foundational Lean principles, the book provides readers with the benefit of the experience of an integrated healthcare system's successful seven-year Lean journey. This book grew out Gabow's 40 years' experience as a practicing physician, teacher, researcher, and leader of a large, urban public healthcare system.

About 10 years into her 20 years as CEO of the healthcare system, she began to look at how one could actually make healthcare work right. After a year of study, she and her team concluded that Lean was exactly what healthcare needed. During the seven-year Lean journey that followed, Denver Health dramatically improved quality of care. Denver Health achieved a reduction of the expected mortality rate to the lowest among the academic health center members of the University Health System Consortium in 2011.The financial results were equally impressive. Denver Health realized almost $200 million of well-documented, hard financial benefit over seven years.

This book provides authoritative guidance on how to effectively implement a Lean transformation in a healthcare system that includes hospitals, HMOs, community health centers, call centers, and paramedics. Providing an accessible explanation of the Lean philosophy and tools, the book includes helpful exercises and examples of Lean applications. The book goes beyond the hospital environment to the broader healthcare sector.

In December 2015, Gabow and Goodman were awarded the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award for the book. The Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award recognizes and promotes research and writing regarding new knowledge and understanding of lean and operational excellence.

Patricia A. Gabow, MD, MACP, was CEO of Denver Health from 1992 until her retirement in 2012, initially transforming it from a department of city government to a successful, independent governmental entity and then leading its Lean transformation. Denver Health's Lean effort earned the Shingo Bronze Medallion for Operational Excellence, the first healthcare entity in the world to receive such recognition. Prior to becoming CEO, Dr. Gabow was a practicing nephrologist and academic researcher serving as chief of nephrology, director of medical services, and chief medical officer at Denver Health. Dr. Gabow is a member of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Board of Trustees, the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Value and Science Driven Health Care, the National Governors' Association Health Advisory Board, and a senior advisor to Simpler. She is a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and has authored more than 150 articles and book chapters. She earned her MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She has received numerous awards including the AMA Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Public Servant, the National Healthcare Leadership Award, the David E. Rogers Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Health Quality Leader Award from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), and was elected to the Association for Manufacturing Excellence for her work in bringing Lean into healthcare.

Philip L. Goodman, MS, RRT, was the director of the Lean Systems Improvement Department at Denver Health, overseeing the Lean facilitators and Lean educational initiatives. In this role he led the operational aspects of the Lean transformation effort, the Black Belt training program, and the Lean Academy at Denver Health. Goodman was employed at Denver Health from 1979 until his retirement in 2013. Prior to directing the Lean Systems Improvement Department, he was the service line administrator for the Department of Medicine and director of respiratory therapy at Denver Health. Goodman is a Denver Health Master Black Belt and a registered respiratory therapist.

He earned his master's degree in healthcare administration from Regis University in Denver. Goodman has conducted numerous presentations of Denver Health's Lean transformation effort at the national level.