performance improvement

As we travel to the different regions we are constantly meeting unit-based teams that are truly high performing. These teams have made the commitment to do things differently and get everyone involved in the decision making process. But how does a team know when they have hit and are sustaining their peak performance? Is it the same from department to department? Facility to facility? Region to region?

With 79 unit-based teams, the Ohio region has made significant progress in becoming a high performance improvement organization. The challenge now, according to Belva Denmark-Tibbs, vice president of medical operations, is for all 79 UBTs to perform at the highest level. She recently caught up with LMP Senior VEEP Barb Grimm, and shared these thoughts.

How do teams succeed?  What is success?  How do we know we are winning?

These are some of the great questions we all ask about our work in Partnership  These questions come to mind every day as we work on improving clinical quality, patient safety, service quality, efficiency, and making our work environment safer, better, and conducive to a great work experience.

Dr. Shawn Dufford, medical director of peri-operative services in Colorado, knows about teams. Through his performance improvement work in the OR, he has learned that every member of the team needs a voice to make sure the patient’s interests are paramount. In this guest blog, Dr. Dufford, gives advice on engaging other physicians UBTs and where he would like to see the Partnership in ten years.

President Obama recently nominated Don Berwick, MD, to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees the programs and payment of more than $800 billion annually. This is the largest source of payments to health care providers in the U.S. If he is confirmed, the appointment of Dr. Berwick may be the most significant first step since the passage of the Health Care Reform bill.

Bridget Hurley’s Gang of Four (Plan, Do, Study, Act) will help you get through life’s small tests of change. Hurley, national LMP coordinator for performance improvement, helps union delegates delve deeper into the well-known cycle that drives their work in unit-based teams.

Improving patient satisfaction, streamlining workflows, cutting waste: Frontline leaders came to the Union Delegate Conference eager to dive into a host of performance issues. But jumping into the deep water can be dangerous. 

Delegates at the “We’re With You” workshop engaged in a freewheeling discussion with four frontline leaders whose main message was summed up in the workshop name. 

Shawn Dufford, MD, director of peri-operative services in the Colorado region; Walter Allen, executive director of OPEIU Local 30;  Martha Gilmore, medical group administrator at the South San Francisco Medical Center, and Howard Fullman, MD, medical director of the West LA Medical Center, shared practical tips with participants—many of them UBT co-leads. 

Dr.

At the Union Delegate Conference, Barb Grimm ran into her friend and colleague, Alide Chase, senior vice president of quality and service for Kaiser Permanente. Chase was thrilled to be a conference of frontline workers who are committed to improving quality and service every day.

The latest headlines from the world of health care can be depressing.  Increases in morbid obesity amongst our children, adult onset diabetes, lung cancer and asthma are on the rise along with a ballooning, aging population.

Headlines decrying drastic cuts to public health services and Medicare and Social Security funds blare at us.

Here’s something really scary: predictions of decreases in numbers of skilled health care workers are already coming to pass. We are seeing fewer and fewer medical students picking primary care as their field of choice.