Looking for some great advice ......New to Quality Improvement

Published

Specializes in CCU, Infection Control.

Hello Everyone,

I have accepted a job as a Patient Safety/Quality Coordinator of a cardiac line [Cath Lab, Echo/ TEE lab, EKG, Cardiac Rehabilitation]. I will start in this newly created position in May. I have been an infection control nurse for 16 months. Before that, I was CCU nurse for about 6 years. I enjoy the IC position, but sort of missed the cardiac world. I think that this position will be a good fit for me.

I was wondering if members of this forum would be willing to share some of their "Pearls of QI Wisdom" with me. Are there any good textbooks that I can refer to to help me in this role? Does anyone have any auditing tolls that they would be willing to share? Even if the tools are not specific to a cardiac line, it would likely still be helpful to me. Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.

https://www.ncqa.org/Portals/0/Publications/Resource%20Library/NCQA_Primer_web.pdf

http://cmss.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CMSS-Quality-Primer-layout.final_.pdf

http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/publications/internal/outcomes.pdf

http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/HowtoImprove/default.aspx

Quality Measure Tools & Resources | Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality

The above are some links to helpful basic information about quality improvement. Were I in your shoes, I would be thinking about the following in this order:

1. Does the facility already have a quality improvement manager and/or quality improvement plan? What internal resources can you tap into without having to re-invent the wheel?

2. The foundation of any quality improvement initiative is data. What quality or safety metrics are already being collected, or what quality or safety data can you access to start measuring quality and safety and use that to guide your efforts? Without data on the 'before' and 'after', your quality improvement efforts will be in the dark.

3. Study up on the 'PDSA' method of quality improvement. It is the most commonly used method in healthcare quality improvement for a reason.

4. Talk to your service line and facility leadership: how do they define quality and safety in your service line? What do they think needs to be done or should be accomplished? Do they have any quantitative goals and timelines thereto?

5. Remember that quality and patient safety is a team effort and involves all members of the healthcare team: administration, providers, nursing staff, support staff, patients and families. Learn to have stakeholders as necessary from all of these groups. You will not accomplish very much by yourself acting in isolation.

Feel free to contact me if I may be of any further help.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in CCU, Infection Control.

RiskManager thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my posting with this valuable information.

Forgot to mention that I will be transferring into this position, I am a bit familiar with the Quality Improvement Director. The director has a team of about 4 different Quality Specialists. Pretty certain that I will be able to tap into available internal resources for assistance.

I will definitely be reaching out to you again. I like to be proactive and start to do some studying and investigating on my own.

Greatly appreciate your help and words of wisdom!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Great start; find out who is collecting your ACC, STS and device (PPM/AICD) data so that you can see what is trending well and what needs focused upon. Talk to your physician chair for these areas-he/she should know the data (it is benchmarked) and should have some sort of goals whether growth or general improvement towards patient safety.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in CCU, Infection Control.

Hello QIqueen (I love your name :)),

Thanks for taking the time to share this great information. I feel like I have a better starting point now

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion