Hospital’s Quality Improvement Council (QIC):
QIC was developed during the last few years under the supervision of hospitals
directorship and is formed by the managers of different administrative and
clinical departments in hospital . The main task of this council is to lead the
Continuous Quality Improvement process in close collaboration with all
departments throughout hospital. Under the supervision of QIC, the twelve
Continuous Quality Improvement teams, divided in 4 administrative and 8 clinical
teams, continuously monitor the quality of care and follow up the progress of
service delivery in all aspects. In essence, the aim of development and activity
of this group is to improve the quality of care in concordance with the vision
and the mission of hospital and to implement the strategic goals in determined
time table.
As you could notice from our vision statement, our patients are
center of all these efforts and we hope to provide them excellent healthcare
services in a safe and reliable environment. Our vision: Accessible & Reliable
for All And Excellent in Healthcare Services in the Region.
You can Here are some
of our guidelines in quality improvement:
What is CQI?
Continuous Continuous
Quality Improvement (CQI) is a the philosophy of continuously progress in a step
by step manner - much like a mountain climbing. The keys of CQI are: knowing how
to climb (the process); trying different paths to the peak (by learning by
trial) and holding the gained elevation (by adopting the successful methods into
our day to day routine).
EEvery MBA student knows about the CQI process, but in
healthcare, we either do not know it or have failed to realize its potential.
Today doctors and executives in all around the world are paying thousands of
dollars to learn this process and have clinician accept this methodology for
improvement in health care services.
The result of throughoutCQI is
costs reduction for the organization, better care and more saved lives and an
overall reduction of medical error. The main elements of CQI are: problem
solving, interpersonal skills, teamwork and the quality improvement process
itself.
Healthcare: A system property
The delivery of healthcare today is
complex - it is a 'system' property not just an isolated event such as a doctor
giving medicine to the patient. Lack of success is not due to individuals rather
it is the responsibility of the system that was created and is being redesigned.
Three fundamental questions for achieving improvement
Improvement is based on
knowledge.Knowledge must then be applied. The answers to three fundamental
questions form the basis of improvement based on applied knowledge.
-What are we
trying to accomplish?
-How will we know that a change is an improvement?
-What
changes can we make that will result in improvement?
All our lives, we have used
'trial and error' to evolve and improve. The new process of improvement is
similar but with a twist. It's not 'trial and error' but 'trial and learning'.
The above three questions lead to this new process of 'trial and learning'.
Trail means we do a small test of change. Learning means that we identify the
criteria that have led to the change and then we measure the change and
incorporate it as our fundamental way of working.
What are we trying to
accomplish? We may be trying to improve our cricket game or trying to reduce the
infection rate in the ICU, but we must have an 'aims statement'. This statement
must be focused, succinct and written down so that others can become partners in
the process.
How will we know that a change is an improvement? This question
implies that we must measure and if we improve and the improvement is sustained
over time then we must conclude that the change lead to the improvement.
Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle
What changes can we make that will result in
improvement?
So here lies the core of the improvement process. It is the PDSA
cycle or the Plan, Do, Study and Act. What this emphasizes is:
Plan: A change or
test. Here you ask questions and predict what will change the process. You plan
to carry out the cycle, the details of which include who, what where when.
Do:
Carry out the plan. You collect the data and begin analyzing the data
Study:
Summarize what was learned by completing the analysis of the data and comparing
the data to predictions
Act: Determine what changes are to be made and what will
be the next cycle. Also, evaluate what changes to keep and what to discard?
The
cycle is then repeated again and again, each time with a small test of change,
data gathering, analysis and a decision to keep or discard the change.
Summary
As humans we will always strive for improvement. However we have the options of
following trial and error where we have to wait decades for the improvement to
work or trial and learning where we can see the change in days.
Healthcare is an
ideal setting to test the model of change - and no doubt we have much to improve
in the area of drug delivery, hospital care, medical error reduction, and
hospital infection reduction.
The model of improvement of Plan-Do-Study-Act is
the first bold step any executive or clinician can take in trying to improve
care at his/her facility. Surprisingly, after the initial hesitation, the
clinicians are often quick to adopt this method, because this process is data
driven and utilizes the rigorous scientific methods in which they are well
trained.
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