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

RiskManager · Apr 3, 2016

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.

JordiesMomRN · Apr 3, 2016

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!

qiqueen · Apr 4, 2016

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.

JordiesMomRN · Apr 5, 2016

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