Are You Missing Out on Some of Your Most Innovative Quality Improvement Ideas?

Are You Missing Out on Some of Your Most Innovative Quality Improvement Ideas?

Winter is on its way to Western Michigan, and the temperatures are dropping. The leaves are actually dripping down the branches of the trees. Just this morning, while I was eating breakfast and looking out into the woods, I saw a constant stream of golden brown, red, and yellow leaves falling to the ground.

Last month, I spoke about how to keep your quality improvement improvements in place by creating a handbook of SOPs, or standard operating procedures, that you can refer to whenever necessary. You may also access numerous prior issues of my magazine on my website if you missed out on that one.

This month, I'd like to talk about getting started on a quality improvement initiative. That is, how do you choose which project to devote your time to? Is there a particular problem or procedure that generates the most waste, harms the most people, or has the most impact on the bottom line? Consider yourself a leader on your team, and you have a broad understanding of what is creating issues on your team. For example, you could believe that people who have catheters are more likely to get infections. Perhaps the process of checking patients in at your facility is taking too long and is causing a bottleneck in the process. Patients may be grumbling about having to wait too long at the doctor's office check-in counter, for example. It's possible that specific departments are experiencing supply shortages on a regular basis. There are a variety of different alternatives. Without being personally engaged in the disputed process, it is likely that you will be unaware of the specific difficulties that exist, as well as any potential remedies.

In conclusion, in order to discover the many problems that every organization faces, particularly those that result in wasted effort, time, and money on the part of the organization's leaders, a mechanism for problems to be brought to the attention of the leaders from the front lines of the organization must be in place. We need a means for leaders to hear about issues directly from individuals who are directly affected by them. For example, does anybody in your business know about any innovative ideas that the cleaning crew has for improving the organization? When I say that there needs to be a mechanism for ideas to come to light, I don't mean that nursing staff and other professionals should be the only ones who have a say. Instead, as with the Baldrige Improvement Plans, quality improvement is carried out with the participation of the whole team.

The president, CFO, COO, and other members of the executive team visit various hospitals each week to chat with employees at all levels and patients to learn about how things may be improved and to get some good input about what is doing well. Perhaps you would want to start something similar to this on your website. As time passes and proposals are put into action, employees will feel more confident in their ability to make suggestions.

Regardless of the technique for offering improvements, leadership must ensure that employees feel comfortable in bringing proposals to upper management. It's possible that you'll wish to utilize an anonymous poll to get the first recommendations for your project. After some of the proposals are implemented, the employees will believe that the leaders are really interested in excellent ideas and will feel more comfortable sharing them. Consider hiring a Lean Healthcare consultant (many of the concepts I provide are derived straight from Lean Healthcare) to train your team on the principles and procedures of Lean Healthcare, as well as any other tools that may be appropriate. As opposed to the concept of gradually distributing the means of change across a company as some want, this strategy will assist a huge firm in rapidly implementing several good changes.

No matter what your organization's initial process for getting ideas to percolate up through the ranks and file was, after some ideas for quality improvement recommended by employees are successfully implemented, after the savings and improvements are made known throughout the organization, it is time to devise new methods for obtaining additional ideas. Perhaps you'd want to have frequent meetings with a chosen leader and representatives from other staffing areas who will put up suggestions for the organization. In order for this to happen, the rest of the team members must feel comfortable expressing proposals to these team members. If your site has a small number of employees, it may be best to hold regular staff meetings with all employees, during which time the agenda always includes time for quality improvement ideas and updates on ongoing projects. If your site has a large number of employees, it may be best to hold regular staff meetings with all employees. Whatever approach you use for your site, be certain that a safe and secure environment is created for all of the employees. This may include going so far as to ensure that no employees will lose their jobs as a result of the enhancements, which would free up more time to complete tasks.

What should you do after you have a consistent stream of quality improvement suggestions supplied by all members of the organization? Which ones should be implemented first? That is something I will handle next month. In this issue, I opted to focus on the definition phase of Six Sigma's DMAIC process model (define, measure, act, improve, control). Following that, I'll go through the measuring part. I'll examine team dynamics in more detail at a later date as well.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

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