Frank Mewborn's Background
Frank Mewborn, P.E. is a principal and founder of the Bay Area Lean Institute (https://bayarealeaninstitute.com), an organization dedicated to helping health care companies improve operations. His primary area of expertise is the application of lean principles to reduce waste, improve workflows, and engage employees in continuous improvement.Frank Mewborn, P.E. is a principal and founder of the Bay Area Lean Institute, an organization dedicated to helping health care companies improve operations. His primary area of expertise is the application of lean principles to reduce waste, improve workflows, and engage employees in continuous improvement.
Prior to founding the Bay Area Lean Institute, Frank spent four years as a senior principal consultant with Kaiser Permanente’s Performance Improvement Institute. He helped develop Kaiser’s performance improvement program, served on the faculty of the Improvement Institute, and mentored hundreds of Improvement Advisors who completed improvement training. Frank advised senior leaders in seven Kaiser hospitals and dozens of outpatient clinics.
Prior to joining Kaiser, Frank spent 25 years on the research faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Frank worked with manufacturers and health care providers to train employees and guide management through the implementation of state-of-the-art process improvement techniques. He was the Director of the Georgia Tech Healthcare Performance Group, which provided improvement consulting to hospitals. Frank has been a lead developer of lean training programs and materials. Courses he helped develop have been licensed by the National Institute of Science and Technology and are among the most commonly used lean training courses in the United States. The Quality Center at the American Hospital Association also licensed these training materials and Frank served on the AHA faculty.
About Wound Reference
WoundReference is the only decision support platform designed exclusively for wound care and hyperbaric oxygen clinicians. Our point-of-care tools enable clinicians to work more efficiently.
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Improving Wound Care with a Lean Approach
It is not unusual for several weeks to pass before a patient with a serious wound receives the proper care for that wound. Every wound care specialist has experienced the following: a patient with ulcer goes to the emergency department (ED), the ED clinician applies a dressing and refers to a minor injury clinic. Minor injury clinic refers to the primary care physician (PCP), the PCP requires a visit for a look and see. PCP sends a request for authorization/ referral to see a
