Every organization has a different product or service. Developing a quality improvement system is no easy task. It takes patience, creativity, vision, and a good eye for detail (oh, and did I mention lots and lots of coffee?). Getting started may seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be so scary.
Every major project comes with challenges, some of which you didn't see coming, and that's part of what ultimately makes it so rewarding. However, there are some common barriers that prevent organizations from continuing to develop (or significantly review) their quality improvement system. The ultimate goal is to develop a quality improvement system that provides a framework for using data to support decision-making and improve practices. The culmination of all this hard work is an organization that is capable of transforming data into knowledge and strengthening its practices to better meet the needs of its stakeholders.
Remember that improving practices does not mean that they were inadequate before. You are using a platform to evaluate organizational performance in a carefully planned way. Michael De Cicco is the Vice President of External Relations & Communications at the Accreditation Council, where he oversees business development, marketing, communications, awards and partnerships, training and quality improvement, and business intelligence groups. A true citizen of the world, he speaks seven languages and is an avid traveler in his spare time.
LW Consulting, Inc., 5925 Stevenson Avenue, Suite, Harrisburg, PA 17112. The lack of a common vocabulary for quality improvement and research terms on implementation is an obstacle to further progress. This is compounded by the fact that the frameworks for how this research should be approached are not widely known. The result, Grimshaw concluded, is that those who research in these areas have difficulty communicating with each other, which contributes to the problem that studies are not based on previous findings, as mentioned above. Difficulties increase when research is conducted in an interdisciplinary environment, Pincus added.
There are a wealth of tools and resources available in books and online to help you increase your organization's success in implementing quality and process improvement activities. Quality improvement has been largely based on experiential learning, but this knowledge has not yet been adequately reflected in the literature. During the debate, Richard Kahn, of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), noted that, as a voluntary health organization, the ADA does not receive many applications for research grants to improve quality. Therefore, the purpose of this workshop was to bring together people from various fields to discuss what quality improvement is and what barriers exist in the health industry to improving quality, and also to research on quality improvement.
Curriculums should be developed, Pincus suggested, focusing on skills that are currently considered important to quality improvement researchers. They provide guidance and encourage a culture of improvement by creating spaces for staff to get excited about data. For them, discovering generalizable truths about the effectiveness and effectiveness of quality improvement interventions can largely be a secondary consideration. The types of training needed to be successful in improving quality have not been specified, but before evidence can be accumulated on the subject, Pincus said, it will be necessary to develop an infrastructure to train and develop people to dedicate themselves to the field of research on quality improvement.
Journals need to start rethinking part of what is published, Davidoff said, citing the Annals of Internal Medicine section on improving patient care as an example. And, Pincus said, if you want to treat quality improvement as an interdisciplinary field, special attention must be paid to the criteria on how promotion and permanence should be executed. Collaborate with human and social services organizations to strengthen their capacity to improve the lives of the people they serve. Research to improve quality can also be leveraged through strategies that focus on individual researchers, for example, by providing wage support to protect research time or by modifying ownership and promotion policies to respond to the special barriers of interdisciplinary research.
Another topic is how potential researchers should be recruited to improve the quality and safety of patients in an interdisciplinary field. Publishing is rarely considered an essential element for quality improvement, Davidoff said, because quality improvement studies often depend on the local context and do not identify or share generalizable truths. However, there are times when quality improvement activities and processes do not produce the expected interesting results. .
