Informatics 8: Quality Improvement Flashcards
quality reviews
- every 1 patient we do good by we only gain one patient back
- no more no less
- every patient you do wrong by you lose 5 patients
- people are more likely to leave bad reviews
quality improvement theory
- quality improvement in the hospital goals for this primer
- understnad fundamental concepts in quality improvement
- identify the environment and key steps for a successful quality improvement project
- become familiar with several quality improvement tools and their use
quality improvement: bridging the implementation gap
- direct relationship between progress and time -> patient care
- scientific understanding and IT can decrease the implementation gap
- patient care is slow increasing slope :(
- we get it right 54% of the time -> not good
hospitalists and quality improvement
- complex process problems need multidisciplinary solutions
- all departments work together
- we are at the frontlines seeing system failures process errors, and performance gaps with our own eyes -> which is our competitive advantage
- teaching people how to use EMR wrong -> snow ball effect -> people take it out on other things
- improved quality delivers:
- better pt care**
- at lower costs
- with potentially higher reimbursements (pay-for-performance)
- and it can make our jobs more interesting, fun, and rewarding
quality
- meeting the needs and exceeding the expectations of those we serve
- delivering all and only the care that the patient and family needs
- we do this to better patient care
improvement
- it is NOT:
- yelling at people to work harder, faster, or safer
- creating order sets or protocols and then failing to monitor their use or effect- follow up
- traditional quality assurance-
- research (but they can co-exist nicely)- trying a new durg
improvement requires change
- principle #1
- every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets
- to improve the system, change the system*…
- change= not just doing something different, but engineering something different -> at least one step in at least one process
clinical research
- trying something new in the real word
- monitor to see if its working
- and then put it in true clinical practice
less is more
- principle #2
- you cannot destroy productivity
- when changing the system, keep it simple
change
- not just doing something different, but engineering something different
- at least one step in at least one process
understanding change in the hospital atmosphere
- high reliability strategies commonly succeed:
- build a “decision aide” or reminder into the system
- make the desired action the default action (not doing the desired action requires opting out)
- build redundancy into responsibility (e.g. if one person in the chain overlooks it, someone else will catch it)
- schedule steps to occur at known intervals or events
- standardize a process so that deviation feels weird
- take advantage of work habits or reliable patterns of behavior
- build at least one- if not more- of these high reliability strategies into any changed process
improving quality
-can increase or decrease cost depending on the situation
understanding change in the hospital atmosphere
- change engineered to drive improvement depends on…
- workplace culture
- awareness
- evidence
- exerience
workplace culture
- personnel must be receptive to change
- ready to accept change
awareness
-administrative and medical staffs must care about performance and support its improvement through change
evidence
-local experts must identify which research to translate into practice
experience
- a skilled team must choose, implement, and follow up changes to ensure:
- improvement efforts are ongoing and yielding better performance
- productivity is perserved
an atmosphere for change
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the driving force for change: the multidisciplinary team
-a team is not the same as a committee
committee
- individuals bring representation
- productive capacity = single most able member
- sum of the whole is greater than the individual
team
- individuals bring fundamental knowledge
- productive capacity = synergistic (more than the sum of all individual team members together)
hospital atmosphere
- hospitals tend to be viscous, complex systems with default levels of performance
- change engineered to improve performance can be a foreign concept or even overtly resisted
consensus
- finding a solution acceptable enough that all members can support it
- no member opposes it
- you need to wholeheartedly agree when you vote
- very hard to do
- everyone agrees but it may not be their first choice
- it is NOT:
- a unanimous vote (consensus may not represent everyone’s first priority)
- a majority vote (in a majority vote, only the majority gets something they are happy with, people in the minority may get something they dont want at all, which is not what consensus is all about)
- everyone it totally satisfied
3 types of team members
- team leader
- team facilitator
- process owners (members with operational, hands-on fundamental knowledge of the process)