Most healthcare organizations adopting AI are moving fast, but many are doing so without the stable processes, disciplined management systems, and operational foundation required to turn AI investments into measurable results.

This is a serious problem.

The data shows the gap. A 2026 Guidehouse and HIMSS survey found that 78% of health systems are already engaged in AI projects, yet only 52% feel operationally ready to deploy them at scale. Deloitte's 2026 Global Health Care Outlook, based on a survey of 180 health care C-suite executives across six countries, found that more than half of health system respondents had not yet measured whether their AI investments were producing results, and only a small fraction reported significant financial returns.

AI technology is advancing faster than the operational discipline underneath it. The question is no longer simply whether to adopt AI, it is whether the organization has the operating model required to make it work.

Lean Healthcare and AI are not competing strategies; together they can form one connected operating model for healthcare operational excellence. Yet many healthcare organizations still treat them as separate initiatives.

Lean provides the management structure, process discipline, leadership routines, and culture needed to improve and sustain results. AI adds speed, pattern recognition, automation, and decision support within that structure. AI can accelerate what Lean makes possible, but without Lean, AI can simply automate existing instability, variation, and waste.

Here is what that looks like in practice.

Lean creates stable, standardized processes, AI monitors those processes and can identify risks or deviations earlier than periodic audits or manual reviews. But identifying a problem is only the beginning. Standard work defines who responds, what action is required, and how quickly it must occur. Follow-up confirms that the action happened and produced the intended result.

Without that closed loop, an AI alert is simply another notification.

That is the gap this book closes.

Written for healthcare leaders at every level, from department managers to system executives, Lean Healthcare + AI shows how to integrate Lean and AI methodically and responsibly. It begins by establishing what Lean Healthcare truly is, then shows how AI can be built into that operating system rather than added alongside it.

Inside, you will see what this looks like in practice:

Kaiser Permanente Northern California paired AI-supported deterioration alerts with a structured clinical response process, an approach associated with an estimated 520 deaths avoided per year.

Sutter Health used AI-enabled lung nodule tracking to double its rate of early-stage lung cancer diagnoses.

Drawing on two decades of Lean practice and extensive healthcare improvement experience, Terry Norris brings together more than 70 real-world AI examples, nearly 400 cited sources, and more than 60 tables, illustrations, and ready-to-use tools.

Lean builds the discipline. AI gives it speed. This book shows healthcare leaders how to bring both together with purpose, structure, and measurable results.

Terry Norris, MBA, is a Lean Certified Master Black Belt, author, speaker, and full-time Lean consultant with advanced expert-level certification in generative and agentic AI. He has trained more than 1,850 healthcare leaders in over 150 hospitals on Lean concepts, principles, and the leadership practices required to lead a Lean transformation.

As a consultant, he has helped healthcare organizations develop Lean strategic implementation plans and led dozens of frontline rapid improvement events across nearly every hospital department. He has also helped clients integrate AI and other technologies into Lean transformations and operational improvement efforts, including advising on AI agents, change management, performance measurement, and business- case development. His work focuses on using Lean and AI together to eliminate waste, mistake-proof processes, improve flow, and accelerate continuous improvement.

Terry’s Lean experience is both diverse and extensive, spanning healthcare, health and human services, health insurance, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, federal and county government, the military, and other complex service environments. Through this work, he has helped organizations save millions of dollars while increasing capacity and strengthening operational and financial performance.

Terry served in the United States Air Force for 25 years. In his final role, he served as the Lean leader for a complex organization of 5,500 people across five locations in four European countries, where he established the organization’s Lean structure and delivered 55 major improvement projects, saving millions of dollars through direct savings and cost avoidance. During his Air Force career, Terry was promoted into the top one percent of the enlisted force and became one of the youngest Chief Master Sergeants in USAF history.

He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Lean Deployment, Strategic Management, Leadership, Operations Management, and Project Management for more than 22 years. That combination of hands-on consulting, military leadership, academia, and AI work shapes his view of operational excellence as both a leadership discipline and a management system.

Terry resides in East Tennessee and enjoys spending time with his wife, children, and young grandchildren.

Bring Lean discipline and AI speed together in your organization.