Quality Improvement Tools

 

Documenting workflows, or process mapping, is a great way to capture the current need for daily and sometimes hourly changes practices are experiencing with the recent COVID-19 crisis. The advantage of mapping a process as a group of inter-related steps is that you document the process from multiple perspectives.

Example:

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on 30 Mar 2020 2:47 AM
  • COVID-19
  • Process Improvement
  • Process Map
  • Telehealth
  • Telemedicine
  • Workflow

Starfish Diagram

A starfish diagram is a process improvement tool used to identify opportunities for improvement. Team members categorize key tactics to “start doing”, “stop doing”, “do less”, “do more”, and “keep doing” to continue progress toward defined outcomes.

Patient Cycle Time

Patient cycle time observation is a tool to measure the time it takes a patient to move through each part of the visit. Understanding the patient care processes and procedures in your practice, and the impact on the patient flow, will help you to improve the quality of care.

PDSA - Plan - Do - Study - Act

How do you test change in your performance improvement projects? The Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) model is a common evidence-based, time-tested model for engaging the team, documenting the process, and identifying the best approach for your organization.

Process Mapping

Documenting a workflow, or process mapping, visually describes each step of a process from start to finish. It helps you to understand how the process flows, and how effective it is.

Much like evidence-based medicine and clinical care pathways, there is much to gain by following a “what works” approach to network design and development. Based on years of experience studying and building effective value-based networks of physicians, HealthTeamWorks has identified 7 proven levers or drivers of change and performance.

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For over 20 years, the Children’s Hospital Immunodeficiency Program (CHIP) has been providing comprehensive, coordinated, family-centered care for children, adolescents, young adults and pregnant women living with HIV, affected by or at risk for HIV. They also provide vital care to infants born to women living with HIV and to parents of children living with HIV.  The multidisciplinary CHIP team is dedicated to providing state-of-the-art care that meets the medical, social, psychological, developmental, and nutritional needs of their diverse group of clients.

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on 12 Dec 2016 12:00 AM
  • Quality Improvement
  • PDSA

Five whys (or 5 whys) is a technique used to explore the  cause and effect relationships underlying a particular problem.

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A Check Sheet is a structured form for collecting data in real time at the location where the data is generated. This data may be qualitative (subjective or anecdotal) or quantitative (amount or range). Also known as tally sheets, check sheets are used to systematically record data as they happen so patterns and trends can be detected.
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A Survey is an instrument to gather data or information from customers in a structured manner.

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How do you test change in your performance improvement projects? The Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) model is a common evidence-based, time-tested model for engaging the team, documenting the process, and identifying the best approach for your organization.

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A Pareto Chart is used to focus improvement efforts on the problems that offer the greatest potential for improvement, and to concentrate efforts on the "vital few" (20%) sources of problems and not be distracted by the "trivial many" (80%).

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Nominal Group Technique is a structured group brainstorming process involving problem identification, solution generation, and decision making. It is particularly useful around defining consensus among members of a team/group regarding priority or importance of items on a brainstormed list.

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Force Field Analysis is a tool to aid in decision making when many variables are present. It is often used to identify the forces in place that either support a change or work against a change.

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Control Chart is used to monitor, control, and improve process performance over time by studying variation and its source.

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Documenting a workflow, or process mapping, visually describes each step of a process from start to finish. It helps you to understand how the process flows, and how effective it is.

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A Histogram, or Frequency Diagram, is a bar chart that shows the frequency of how often a cause or issue occurs.

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