Healthcare Quality Management

The Red Bead Experiment in Healthcare: Improving Patient Safety Through Systems Thinking

Healthcare organizations around the world are under increasing pressure to deliver better patient outcomes, reduce errors, and improve overall quality. But despite investments in technology, employee training, and policy changes, many healthcare providers still grapple with persistent challenges in patient safety and care reliability. What if the problem isn’t the people, but the system itself? The Red Bead Experiment—originally designed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming—offers remarkable insights showing that most quality issues stem from how processes are designed and managed, not from individual performance. In this article, we’ll explore how the Red Bead Experiment applies to healthcare settings, and how adopting systems thinking can revolutionize patient safety initiatives.