Impact indicator?

[AlexisZ]

Hi everyone,

I'm doing a school project, in terms of healthcare improvement. So in our group, we split the work into a few sections, and mine is "Measure the effectiveness of the intervention". (There are others like"identifying the problem"/"whos involved"/"what changes can be made")

I'm really confused that what kind of impact indicator should I use, in other words, how do I know if it is an improvement?

Our theme is improving clinical communication(handovers and all that jazz. We have watched a video about a catastrophic event, and pick this up.)

I've never worked in a hospital, can someone drop me some hints? That would be really helpful, thank you!

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

So your group's objective is to improve communication, but that's not specific enough to measure. Your group needs to identify metrics. That is, you need to specify what will be improved and how.

There are two kinds of metrics: outcome metrics and process metrics (actually there are three kinds- the third is balancing metrics, but let's keep this simple).

An outcome metric is the specific, measurable thing that you want to improve. If the objective is to improve communication, your goal may be to increase documentation of hand-off of care at change of shift from X% (current) to Y% (goal). The outcome metric would be % if shift changes with documented hand-off.

Your group may decide that you are going to try to reach this goal by implementing a standardized hand-off tool. The process metrics measure how consistently your intervention is being followed. I.e, what % of nurses are using the hand off tool during change of shift.

Hope this helps. Once your group decides specifically what you want to improve and how you're going to do it, it become much easier to choose metrics and your project will have more direction.