Joining me for episode #222 of the podcast is Erin S. DuPree, M.D., FACOG, the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare. Dr. DuPree is an OB/GYN by training, was previously the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. She is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt and is also a TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) master trainer. For a link to this episode, refer people to www.leanblog.org/222. One thing we have in common is both growing up around Detroit, being exposed to the auto industry and the ideas of W. Edwards Deming early in life. In this podcast, topics include: Her role in the Center for Transforming Healthcare (the Joint Commission does more than accreditation) How Dr. DuPree first got involved in healthcare quality improvement and, in particular, Lean and Six Sigma (two complementary practices, as we agree) Of the different estimates about the number of patients harmed or killed each year due to preventable medical errors, which numbers does she cite and why? There are pockets of improvement around healthcare, but what are some of the biggest barriers, that she sees, that prevent adoption of Lean and Six Sigma and, more importantly, the improvement of quality and patient safety? How does the idea of "High Reliability Organizations" fit with other improvement methodologies? What's the personal patient story that helped her see the preventable harm that occurs and the need for improvement?