Paul Plsek Publications

“If you're thinking creatively and you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.”

DirectedCreativity.com^™
The website of Paul Plsek... author, consultant and pioneering concept developer, with expertise in creativity, innovation, leadership, complexity and large-scale change

Selected Publications by Paul Plsek

Paul is the author or co-author of dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, along with eight books. His publication record spans a 25-year career of innovation, collaboration and helping others to see things in new ways. A selected bibliography on improvement, innovation, leadership and change in complex systems is provided below.

Plsek PE, Onnias A, Early JF. Quality Improvement Tools. Wilton, CT: Juran Institute, Inc., 1989.
Plsek PE. A primer on quality improvement tools. In Berwick DM, Godfrey AB, Roessner J. Curing Health Care. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990.
Plsek PE. Techniques for the management of quality. Hospital and Health Services Administration 1995 40(1):50-79.
Plsek PE. Collaborating across organizational boundaries to improve the quality of care. American Journal of Infection Control 1997 25:85-95.
Plsek PE. Creativity, Innovation and Quality, ASQ Quality Press, 1997.
Plsek PE. Directed creativity and the management of quality in healthcare. In C Caldwell (ed) Handbook for Managing Change in Healthcare. ASQ Quality Press, 1997.
Zimmerman B, Lindberg C, Plsek PE. Edgeware: Insights from Complexity Science for Health Care Leaders. Dallas, TX: VHA Publishing. 1998.
Plsek PE. Incorporating the tools of creativity into quality management. Quality Progress. March, 1998. (Reprinted in IEEE Engineering Management Review 26:3, Fall 1998 and in Cortada JW and Woods JA (ed.) The Knowledge Management Yearbook 1999-2000, Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999. Translated in Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish.)
Plsek PE. Innovative thinking for the improvement of medical systems. Annals of Internal Medicine, 131:6, 438-444, 1999.
Plsek PE, Kilo CM. Influencing physicians: from resistance to attraction: a different approach to change. Physician Executive. 25(6):40-46, 1999.
Plsek PE. Spreading Good Ideas for Better Health Care: A Practical Toolkit. Volume 2 in VHA 2000 Research Series. VHA, 2000.
Foote C and Plsek PE. The NHS Plan: thinking out of the box. Health Service Journal (UK), 111:5750 (12 April 2001) 32-33.
Plsek PE. Redesigning health care with insights from the science of complex adaptive systems. In: IOM Committee on Quality of Health Care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Washington: National Academy Press, 2001.
Plsek PE and Greenhalgh T. The challenge of complexity in health care. British Medical Journal, 2001; 323:625-8.
Plsek PE and Wilson T. Complexity, leadership and management in health care organisations. British Medical Journal, 2001; 323:746-9.
Øvretveit J, Bate P, Cleary P, Cretin S, Gustafson D, McInnes K, McLeod H, Molfenter T, Plsek P, Robert G, Shortell S, Wilson T. Quality collaboratives: lessons from research. Quality & Safety in Health Care. 2002; 11:345-351.
Plsek PE. Complexity and the adoption of innovation in health care. In Proceedings of Accelerating Quality Improvement in Health Care: Strategies to Speed the Diffusion of Evidence-Based Innovations. National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation. Washington DC. January 27-28, 2003.
Palmer RH, Clanton M, Ezhuthachan S, Newman C, Maisels J, Plsek P, and Salem-Schatz S. Applying the “10 simple rules” of the Institute of Medicine to management of hyperbilirubinemia in newborns. Pediatrics (December 2003) 112(6):1388-1273.
Plsek PE, Solberg L, and Grol R. Total quality management (TQM) and continuous quality improvement (CQI) in primary care. In Jones R et. al. (eds) The Oxford Textbook of Primary Care: Volume 1 Principles and Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Horbar JD, Carpenter JH, Buzas J, Soll RF, Suresh G, Bracken MB, Leviton LC, Plsek PE, Sinclair JC. Collaborative quality improvement to promote evidence based surfactant for preterm infants: a cluster randomised trial. British Medical Journal 2004; 329;1004.
Plsek PE. Harness Creativity to Stimulate Creative Thinking. In Bisognano M, Plsek P, and Schummers D. 10 More Powerful Ideas for Improving Patient Care. Chicago: Health Administration Press, 2005.
Gustafson D, Palesh T, Plsek P, Maher L, Picard R, Capoccia V. Automating Addiction Treatment: Enhancing the human experience and creating a fix for the future. In Bushko RG (ed.). Future of Intelligent and Extelligent Health Environment, Amsterdam:IOS Press, 2005. (Results from a research grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.)
Bergman D, Plsek P, Saunders M. A high-performing system for well-child care: a vision for the future. The Commowealth Fund, Publication number 949. 2006. (Results from a research grant from The Commonwealth Fund.)
Plsek PE, Bibby J, and Whitby E. Practical methods for extracting explicit design rules grounded in the experience of organizational managers. Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences. 2007; 43:153-170.
Hannaway C, Plsek PE and Hunter DJ. Developing leadership and management for health. In Hunter DJ (ed.) Managing for Health. London: Routledge, 2007.
Plsek PE. Brainstorming. In Ruggeri F, Kennett RS, Faltin FW (eds) Encyclopedia of Statistics in Quality and Reliability. John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
Bevan H, Ham C, Plsek P. The next leg of the journey: How do we make High Quality Care for All a reality? NHS Institute Working Papers, 2008.
Maher LM, Plsek PE, Garrett S, Bevan H. Thinking Differently. London: NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, 2008.
Roger H, Maher L, and Plsek PE. New design rules for driving innovation in access to secondary care in the NHS. British Medical Journal, 2008, 338:384-387.
Maher LM, Plsek PE. Making a Bigger Difference: A Guide for Assessing and Stimulating Service Innovation. London: NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, 2009.
Plsek PE. An introduction to the theory and practice of large-scale change. NHS Institute Working Papers, 2009.
Maher LM, Plsek PE, Bevan H. Creating the Culture for Innovation: A Guide for Executives. London: NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, 2010.
Lin M, Hughes B, Katica M, Dining-Zuber C, Plsek PE. Service design and change of systems: Human-centered approaches to implementing and spreading service design. International Journal of Design, 2011 5(2), 73-86.
Winstanley L, Bevan H, Plsek PE. Leading Large-Scale Change: The Experience of the NHS Academy for Large-Scale Change. London: NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, 2012.
Russ LR, Phillips J, Brzozowicz K, Chafetz LA, Plsek PE, Blackmore CC, Kaplan GS. (2013) Experience-based design for integrating the patient care experience into healthcare improvement: Identifying a set of reliable emotion words. HealthCare Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation, 2013 1(3):91-99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hjdsi.2013.07.004i
Plsek PE. Accelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and Innovation: The Virginia Mason Experience. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. 2013