Don't Just Stand There: Finding Creativity in Meetings

 There is a saying that goes: 'If you want to kill an idea, bring it to a meeting'. Or, 'if you are lonely, call a meeting'. Meetings in hierarchical healthcare organizations seem to follow a dull and counter-intuitive format: a waste of printed copies of 'meeting minutes', asking people to vote on the previous meeting agenda they most likely do not remember and the un-healthy snacks provided. Too many meetings are poorly organized, are bad for the morale and bad for productivity. Plus, they cost money.

On Revolutions, Rebels and Reshaping Healthcare

In a world of constant change, transforming healthcare is a topic that receives considerable attention. We talk about how we can improve, what solutions to adopt and how to implement change. Then we find ourselves trying to sustain the changes and we go back again to the drawing board: a continuous PDSA cycle within an infinity Enso circle.  This is the fight: against the status quo, to protect our ethical principles as healthcare providers. Our passion guides us like a flag into a war. But is a revolution necessary? Who are the rebels and what do they do?

Leveraging Social Media for Quality (and Self) Improvement

 

TIL (Today I learned)* something new from my nephew. He studies software engineering and is one of those young people really plugged into the digital world, always clicking away on his electronic devices. While I was digressing about my twitter activity, he suggests me to try reddit, a popular social media platform. I heard about it, but never tried it, so am now feeling a bit overwhelmed...just another “internet thing” I have to try now, when I am barely a "joiner" on the social media ladder! Still, what do I have to lose? Perhaps I could use this new tool on my QI journey?

So here I am on reddit. I find out that "This is a place friendly to thought, relationships, arguments, and to those that wish to challenge those genres." The stats are impressing:

New Year: Let's Talk About Resolutions!

It's that time of the year again: you can barely find a parking spot at the gym or a corner to spread your yoga mat in a studio, the produce section at the grocery store is suddenly the busiest place in town, and everyone has a (sometimes manic) glitter of determination in their eyes. If you are one of the people who make New Year resolutions (nothing wrong with that!),  research actually says that you have an 8% chance to stick to it. Yes. Eight Per Cent. Sorry to be a downer, but I am also quite unhappy with the fact that in healthcare up to 70% of change initiatives fail! And for the amount of opportunities for improvement, this is discouraging.

Why do we fail to change? Just like in self-improvement, workplace improvement fails from the very same reasons: competing priorities, the daily whirlwind of activity that makes it difficult to keep on our plan, and choosing far too many goals to reach. But beware! There is that 8% of people who succeed, just like those 25% of change initiatives that prove there is hope! I am clinging on to this rope of hope (ha!) and wonder what can we do to succeed?

Top 3 Best QI Books in 2014

It is almost the end of 2014! As a recap of this year, I was thinking to have a post on the literature on quality improvement, with my top 3 of best reads in this category. In a previous post I was mentioning how quality improvement is a continuous process, where everybody is invested in learning and growing so that incremental improvement is achieved. And learning is an ongoing, crucial activity in improvement.

From all the books I have read on QI in 2014, here are my top 3 picks:

3.  On the Mend- Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry by John Toussaint, M.D. 

Toussaint is the CEO of ThedaCare and one of the most important agents in adopting Lean principles in healthcare. This award winning book talks about how healthcare can be improved using proven principles of Lean management. It is full of examples from ThedaCare, a cathalyst centre for quality improvement and innovation in the US. 

Quote: "Patients are goldmines of customer feedback for healthcare improvement"