On Quality Improvement Action Planning

Having put Quality Improvement Action Planning® in real-world practice for quite some time now, I’ve been able to refine the process and tools for quality and performance improvement in long-term care facilities. Although I’ve used it routinely with clients for several years, I haven’t (until now) blogged its virtues. After all, it’s my own work and I don’t want to sound self-serving. However, the fact is that people have been really noticing the positive impact that QIAP makes in their teams and facilities. So today, let me tell you a bit about QIAP: what it is, what it does, and how I came to developing it.

Closing the Execution Gap
QIAP is a deceptively simple process that builds team strength while simultaneously producing lasting improvements. I like to say it closes the execution gap—the chasm between what long-term care leaders want and what they get much of the time.

Let me explain. In my 30 years in long-term care, and in my 20+ years of management consulting in numerous organizations (healthcare and otherwise), the one constant I have observed almost everywhere is a striking gap between goals set and outcomes achieved. The same problems come back over and over (and over) again -- and people literally get burned out spending their precious time and effort reworking the same old things. This sets up a crisis-management cycle that can keep leaders spinning:  chasing problems rather than really solving them. 

Solving a Problem (Once and For Good) with an Iterative Approach
Soon after getting involved with compliance, I developed QIAP. Knowing that quality and compliance are inseparable in health care, what was needed was a way to routinely produce solid, data-based, lasting solutions. The process had to be complex enough to accomplish that result; and be user-friendly so interdisciplinary teams and bedside staff can easily understand and use it. To meet my requirements, it had to prove itself over time and be validated by someone other than me and my own experience. Most of all, it had to build the solution to the problem into the problem-solving process itself. In other words, as part of the process of designing a solution, the team that uses QIAP is taking steps to implement the solution by engaging all staff involved in thinking about the problem and how best to solve it.

What I have now observed, which has been validated by the independent monitor multiple times as well as by facility and corporate leaders, is that QIAP meets all these requirements. The process involves answering six questions by carrying out four plans. The result, regardless of the opening problem, is a broad, systematic analysis that leads to an action plan that solves the problem.

In my next post, I’ll explain each of the six steps and four plans. Stay tuned.