http://www.leanblog.org/341

My guest for Episode #341 of the podcast is Dr. Rob Hackett, an anaesthesiologist in Sydney, Australia. Rob has become known around the world for his role in what's now called the “Theatre Cap Challenge” — a method for improving communication and, thereby, improving patient safety and outcomes.

As we talk about today, Rob had the idea of writing his name and role on his surgical cap with a sharpie. Eventually, he (and others) have gotten printed caps made as shown below in my LinkedIn post about our discussion (it has received 200,000 views and counting).

As I wrote on LinkedIn, Rob has, unfortunately, been trolled, threatened, and bullied for this seemingly benign and obvious improvement idea — both in the workplace and online. It seems that outsiders to healthcare and those who are new to medicine find an idea like this to be obviously helpful, but those who have been in healthcare the longest struggle to accept it.

I appreciate Rob's perspective that those who oppose this innovation, for whatever reason, probably aren't bad people — they just have a different view and, possibly, some old habits or cognitive biases that they are stuck in.

The interview goes for over an hour. One thing I'd like to do is produce a shorter audio piece that's more like an NPR news story. See below for a full transcript and for links, videos, and more. His website is www.psnetwork.org.