Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with a group of healthcare improvement professionals. We all have very different titles, but once you’ve had the chance to listen to Mark Graban’s podcast, I think you’ll be able to see that the work we all do is surprisingly intertwined.

By way of introduction, our moderator is Mark Graban, who I met at a Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference several years ago, and have kept in touch with since. He is a leader in the process improvement industry, consulting with companies across the country and sharing his knowledge through his blog and podcast.

The first speaker, Isaac Mitchell, is currently with a medical device manufacturer, and his career has taken him across several industries. It is interesting to hear how his various career moves brought him to healthcare and how the lessons he learned shape his approach to Lean implementation.

As you may have read on my blog before, I also journeyed through different industries to land at healthcare systems engineering. I began with an education in architecture, took on a master’s level industrial engineering curriculum and secured an opportunity to make real improvements for many health systems over the last six years.

From business school to the patient bedside, Darrin Judkins sees himself as an agent for good change. Now an innovation manager in healthcare, he’s earned that title by blending his perspectives built from a worldwide education, industrial engineering experience and an insider’s vantage point on clinical care delivery.

Our podcast provides each of our perspectives in separate interviews, but you can see how the common thread of healthcare improvement ties us all together.