Is one big solution possible for Covid or many small ones ?

Basic steps in Kaizen ..

While going through an engaging article by Prof. Gary Pisano of HBS in the May '20 issue of Harvard Business Review (click here for the paper), Prof. Pisano makes a point by saying that many small hygienic practices like wearing masks, hand washing, social distancing and innovations during this Covid time would actually be better than one large innovation, ie. the vaccine. That got me thinking of the power of incremental continuous innovations or KAIZEN ..

During the Spanish flu pandemic from Jan 1918 to December 1920, the world saw almost 50 - 70 million deaths. That was a time when medial care was sparse, limited and expensive, many of the medical innovations had not been developed. Even to this day, the world has not found ways to kill a virus - we are in square one as we were in January 1918. Alexander Fleming's anti-bacterial antibiotic, Penicillin G discovered three years after the Spanish flu virus subsided, in 1923 is no good for the world now. Should we wait for the big vaccine to be discovered or start with many small innovations, like the hygiene factors, now itself ?

Can we deploy Lean Healthcare to solve this Covid pandemic ?

In any lean system, the first and most important point is to 

1. identify value and map it

2. Ensuring a flowing setup and 

3. Ensuing a system of Continuous Improvement. 

1. Identify Value : We should think of having an inexpensive means of handling the Covid virus. The existing Eastern systems of medicine like Ayurveda, Homeo, Sidha, Unani etc should be explored to address this issue. These systems of medicine are effective in some cases and at the same time very cost effective. Every medical system of the world has evolved over centuries and has been effective in some part of the world, that explains the reason for its popularity in that area. There are some situations where each medical system has been effective. 

These ancient medical systems have got their strong and weak points. In India presently a huge movement is on to see that people are administered doses of a popular Homeo medication by name Arsalb 30, 4 medicines taken twice daily for three days before the virus enters the body. This is to be repeated after a month. These medications are preventive in nature and not curative. It has to be administered before one catches the infection, it builds up antibodies in the human body that can prevent a recurrence.

2. Ensuring a flowing setup : The healthcare has to be in a flowing mode, ie. there should be no delay either in health care or health delivery, no queueing and batching, each patient is handled on a unit by unit basis. 

3. System of Continuous Improvement : The Japanese Toyota system hinges on their Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) setup, which relies on incremental innovation. Small definite, quantifiable improvements over time leads to large cost-effective, measurable, lasting innovations. Even if the Covid vaccine does not become a reality in the next 12 months or is ineffective to different strains of Covid 19 virus, the probability or which cannot be ruled out given that there are ten genetic mutations or variations of the virus already out, following the small innovations religiously like

1. effective hand washing, 
2. wearing masks and 
3. social distancing
4. avoiding social gatherings
5. avoid socialising travel, especially air travel
6. improving immunity by having good food and exercises
7. practicing alternate systems of medicine 
8. practicing yoga and breathing exercises for the lungs
9. finding dedicated spots far from human habitation and water bodies to bury dead bodies

are the many effective solutions in the long run.  In the process of continuous Improvement, we can expect many more hygienic practices to be adopted globally. 

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 lasted for three years and even to this day, after 100 years, no effective solution to attack a virus has been developed by modern western medicine. Can we expect a similar repeat of the same this time too ?  

George