Want to improve your team's problem-solving skills? Quality improvement is an evidence-based methodology that provides a step-by-step approach to improving performance. We’re celebrating the launch CCI's newest online course, ABCs of Quality Improvement. In this episode, our expert faculty explains why you should sign up for this free resource today!
Want to improve your team's problem-solving skills? Quality improvement is an evidence-based methodology that provides a step-by-step approach to improving performance. We’re celebrating the launch CCI's newest online course, ABCs of Quality Improvement. In this episode, our expert faculty explains why you should sign up for this free resource today!
Here’s where you can learn more about the people, places, and ideas in this episode:
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Hi everyone. And welcome to CCI Academy Short Course series on the ABCs of QI. I'm Denise Armstorff and I'll be facilitating this seven core series covering the methodology and tools of quality improvement.
I am really excited about this virtual offering of the ABCs of QI and believe that this curriculum can benefit individuals from all facets of healthcare who are engaged in improvement work including organizational leaders, providers and staff who will test ideas and give input regarding work processes managers, supervisors, data analysts and others who support achieving organizational outcomes. This course will also benefit those seeking assistance regarding specific topics, tools and templates.
We envision this curriculum to be used in a variety of ways. First, as a vehicle for building QI capability and capacity in individuals, QI teams and even entire organizations, perhaps using it as an onboarding tool to establish a QI culture, equipping providers and staff with skills, knowledge and tools to do the work of improvement. We also see this video series as a method for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of technical assistance offered by CCI programs.
The curriculum will also be an instrument for accelerated learning through peer sharing and opportunities to post completed tools, ask questions regarding challenges and offer bright spots through CCI Academy's online community forum. The curriculum will also serve as a resource library for knowledge and skill building and a repository for QI tools and templates. One of my favorite things about this curriculum is the design. A step-by-step, real time method, for developing and implementing an improvement project. A team could literally select an area of focus today, start with short course one and begin developing and executing an improvement project immediately. Finally, this curriculum can be used as a refresher training for a specific QI topic or tool.
So, are you ready to get started? Here are some recommendations to consider. Start at the beginning with short course one, module one if you are new to QI methodology and tools, are launching the new improvement initiative, or are instructed to do so by your CCI program lead, or if you are already familiar with some aspects of QI and are looking for a refresher or instructions on a specific topic, jump directly to the course that seems most relevant to your need. Finally, I really recommend that everyone take the opportunity to complete module 2.3, Documenting Your Improvement Story, which introduces a project portfolio that is valuable for managing your improvement project. Well, that's it for the introduction to CCI Academy's, ABCs of QI short core series. I hope that you are as excited as I am to begin this journey. So let's start connecting quality to care.
Laura Blumenthal:
I'm going to get us started on chatting with the woman of the hour and the mastermind behind everything in the course, Denise Armstroff. And I'm going to start by saying, I'm Laura from CCI.
Denise Armstroff:
My name is Denise Armstroff and I'm an independent consultant working in healthcare quality improvement. And I have a background in quality improvement that stems from Kaiser Permanente and the Improvement Institute that they hold. And so that's where I began my career and it's just continued and changed and morphed from that point.
Laura Blumenthal:
Awesome. Thanks, Denise. You just shared a little bit about your background. Why do you like working on quality improvement so much? Why is this practice important to you?
Denise Armstroff:
Yeah, that's a great question. I really have a passion. When I was at Kaiser, let me back up, Kaiser is a big machine, right? And doing improvement there, you always had someone to go and say, "Hey, I need them to participate. I need this person." So there's always someone there. You always have the resources, right. When I left Kaiser, I went to Partnership HealthPlan of California. And, it was there that my director at the time who was Tammy Fisher, she asked me to create a program to build capability and capacity at the clinics that we served. And so, when I started to recognize that the rich resources we had at Kaiser were definitely not available to these folks and how could we help them? And I really found a new passion around helping these folks to discover and unearth how they could improve, because it all really lies at the front line.
Denise Armstroff:
They have the solutions to all the problems, they're not just provided the time and the space to do that. And so it just has become a huge passion of mine to help them discover the ways they can improve, because it really... The folks that do the work, those process users, they have the answers. And, Blumenthal, that's really my passion around the work. And to be really honest, I'm going to tell you when I first came, the first day of the Improvement Institute at Kaiser, they were talking about the theory of profound knowledge and it was the folks from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston. And I literally cried all the way home and said to my mom, "Mom, I don't think I'm ever going to get this." And, I'm so grateful that I stuck with it, but as you apply it, that's where the true winds come in. As you see folks really reap the benefits, it just spurs more and more passion to do quality improvement work.
Laura Blumenthal:
And Denise, what types of people typically work on quality improvement projects?
Denise Armstroff:
Yeah, it just totally depends on the organization. The size of the organization and the makeup of your organization, even the location of the organization. So I seen everyone from frontline MAs be team leads, to individuals with some type of quality improvement in their job title. Sometimes providers, those physicians take up the torch and they're the ones that are leading the way. So I've seen everyone from that very frontline worker to someone with quality who's trying to pull from the other end and people that are trying to push from one end. So, it can really be anyone who really developed a passion and I think people do that by starting to apply and learn.
Laura Blumenthal:
And what kinds of projects do people work on? Or, what kinds of projects have you worked on in your experience?
Denise Armstroff:
Right. Anything and everything I've seen. I helped folks improve patient mobility in a hospital setting, onto the population health issues or initiatives like improving colorectal cancer screening, and even on to what we just finished which was preventing heart attacks and strokes every day. So we're looking at cardiovascular disease prevention. I'd even use this with folks in sterile processing, in a hospital to help them know how to streamline or even prevent injuries. We've even used it for that in the hospital setting. So there, it has so many benefits and uses, especially when you can take the time and space to really document it out, and try new things, and learn from what you try and test.
Laura Blumenthal:
Awesome. Could you share with us, how do you explain what quality improvement is to someone who's new to it?
Denise Armstroff:
Yeah, that's a great question. So generally what I say is really the application of a methodology that helps you to improve. So it's a set of tools that you take and apply. So rather, whether you use Green or the models for improvement or Six Sigma, all of those things come with a set of tools and they're very similar and they have overlaps. And so it's a set of tools, number one. Number two, it's really the cycle of plan to study act. It really takes some thinking about what you think might work, testing that hypothesis by going out and trying it on a very small amount, I'm talking two patients the next appointment, a very small test. And then, learning something from that test and then running another test based on what you learned. So you continue that cycle over and over. So it's tools and cycle and learning.
Laura Blumenthal:
Very helpful. Plan, do, study, act. I think even those of us who aren't steeped in the content definitely know that. One, I guess, before we... We'd love to hear about what the ABCs of Quality Improvement course is, and who you think should take it, and kind of your intention behind its creation.
Denise Armstroff:
Sure. So the ABCs of QI really stems from the work that I did at Partnership HealthPlan, and even goes back to Kaiser and their Improvement Institute. And so, it tries to glean some of the things that I learned, really coming from the perspective of a lay person or the process user, and trying to bring it down to the actual application of what they do. And so, that's what I see the ABCs of QI doing. We used to do this in a two day course. I did it at Partnership HealthPlan in a day long course where we brought learners, and they just learn the fundamentals. And then we tried to change it a little bit to say, "Okay, choose a project that you might apply this to as you learn."
Denise Armstroff:
And so, as we were morphing this into a virtual learning, we realized the ABC of the QI is really meant for anyone who wants to improve something within their health center. And so, it can be... Like we talked about earlier, if you have initiatives, we all have those quality measures that we're looking at and how do we improve that? And so, it's getting folks from the frontline and creating a team of those end users, those process end users with someone who could be a champion and a lead to continue to push them and learn and apply those tools. And so, that's really what the ABCs of QI was meant to do, is to introduce the tools, to provide the content behind the tools, and to find ways to practice with the methodology. And it can be for anyone and everyone in a health center, or even those like me who support health centers in some context.
Laura Blumenthal:
So you shared a little bit that this is really for anyone, but how might someone actually say, "Okay, I have this course," how can they make the best use of it, like in their organization, if they're going to take it on?
Denise Armstroff:
Sure. I would say there are various uses. So, I would say for someone who is trying to create capacity and capability within their own organization, or if there's someone that's new to an organization and they want to introduce quality or start some kind of capability and capacity building, they could start by taking the course themselves. I do have for instance, West County, just toward the end of... Well, I would say toward the beginning of this year, we began to look at how we might use the videos, and how they might use them to build capacity and capability for QI within their own organization. And one of the ways they were going to do this is, for the two individuals that are in quality to sort of use my teachings and do some of that video. But some of them, they would kind of mimic my delivery and deliver it themselves.
Denise Armstroff:
And so, they were going to take a team and then use all the tools. And they were going to try it with one care team and continue that work. So, that was kind of their plan. So that's one way. Another way is you could say, "Okay, my care team needs to improve hypertension. And so everyone watch the videos, and we're going to watch module one and come back together at our next team meeting and form the aim statement," and they can actually apply it to a specific project as they go. And if they work through each module and apply the tools and the methodology to their own initiative, they really can learn how to do quality improvement.
Laura Blumenthal:
Awesome. Thank you, Denise. So, folks know if they're interested in taking the course, you can access the force from the CCI website. It currently sits in CCI Academy, which if you want to go direct, you can go to academy.careinnovations.org, and it is listed as a featured course.