WIHI: Making the Work of QI Less Draining and More Sustaining

Date: June 5, 2014

Featuring:

• Chris Hayes, MD, MSc, Med, FRCPC, Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice (IHI); Medical Officer, Canadian Patient Safety Institute
• Uma R. Kotagal, MBBS, MSc, Senior Vice President for Quality, Safety, and Transformation, James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
• Julie A. Holt, RN, MSN, CENP, Vice President, Patient Services, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

If a systems approach is our best shot at improving the safety and quality of health care, a systems approach might also help address the added time and complexity that’s often a feature of improvement work itself. There are growing signs that even the most dedicated improvement champions and clinicians are overwhelmed by what’s required to meet new standards, regulations, and reporting requirements; and, even more troubling, frontline staff are starting to resent and question the value of new quality initiatives and expectations. Add to this physician burnout, which has been a festering problem in the US since the 1990s, and the time is ripe for some solutions.

 

How can organizations be mindful of the burden constant change places on frontline staff? What is "maximally adoptable improvement" and how can improvers better understand it? We explored all of these issues and this WIHI.