QI Punks

Hopefully you've been working your way though a project with the previous 11 episodes and you are excited and curious to get more info. Where to start? I'll have recommendations on potential next steps and some final thoughts on this series as the podcast transitions into its next phase.

Now you've learned so much and you are burning with the need to share it! But how? And where? And why? Well, probably not why. We all know why we share knowledge, because just like love sharing it gets you more of it. But the hows and whys and wheres can be a bit baffling. So lets dive into the formal and informal ways you can help spread the Science of Improvement mindset and start participating...

"Culture eats Strategy for breakfast". It sure does. If you are going to be a change agent or leader in your system, you are going to need to manage and develop culture. And any change in culture is going to start with changing yourself and moving away from totally natural and totally understandable reactions to the things around you. Which can be frustrating because that work is never over, so le...

You can create a good amount of change by yourself, but to really make the earth move you are going to need other people. If you want to be a change leader you need to invest your time in building a team around your change project. And that involves people. And people are often a little tricky to lead, and many of our natural instincts serve to erode team cohesion instead of building it. So let's...

You've done some PDSA's. You've learned a lot. You think you have a pretty good solution figured out to make the process better. Now what? Now you get to scale, and scale can be really difficult because it involves bringing people into the project that may not have the same commitment that you do. And, getting people other than you to engage with an improvement project is the only way to make a la...

So you've tested out an idea for change! Now what? You've got a couple of options: test the same thing again, test it with more people or in a different setting, modify it and test again, or throw it in the trash and test out a new idea... and many more! To draw an analogy from schoolyard American Football, it's now 4th down. Are you Kicking or Sticking?

You've got a change idea, now what? Take 6 months and plan a comprehensive in-service for the whole staff? Just wing it yourself on a random day? Something a bit more structured but also fast and nimble? Yeah, probably that third option. Lets explore what that would look like!

How do you know what to change? What needs to happen to make things better? Does "more" see like the right answer? More rules, more people, more effort, more money, etc...? Totally understandable reaction, rarely results in improvement. Today we talk about how to generate change ideas and reshape your work processes to produce tangible improvement that doesn't create extra burdens or put the blame...

You have a Run Chart, now what? What does "better" look like? Maybe more important, what are some common data signals that frequently get misinterpreted as "trends" look like? Always had a sneaking suspicion that Year-Over-Year, Pie Charts, and Stoplight charts were total BS but didn't quite know why? Step inside friends and lets talk about what real improvement data is and isn't.

Continuing the discussion about understanding variation. Why it's important to understand the two main types of variation, Common Cause and Special Cause. Plus why we like to use medians instead of averages when taking on Quality Improvement efforts, and the manual way and automated way to get a Median from your data. And seasoning that with a little chat about the homerun king.

Understanding variation in you data, and getting comfortable with what that variation does and does not mean is crucial for meaningful improvement. Too much for one episode, I'm splitting Episode 3 into two parts to have more manageable chunks of info to process. And hopefully after both parts, you will be ready to one of two things. Either take every Year-over-Year or Pie chart you are handed and...

Where to start? How you build a toolkit for improvement? Its simple! You start by counting. How to count? What to count? How frequently to count? We will start to discuss these issues, and many others in the episode. Come and get started on your journey into building better systems around you. And it all starts with getting a roadmap of where you are.

Systems vs Individuals! This would be the Ali vs Frazier of battles, except that the system is so much more powerful than the individuals that it's more like Ali vs "some random person who has been casually checking out the boxing class for a couple weeks". The first step in building a better EMS workplace, with better outcomes for our patients, is understanding the power of taking the focus away...

There is a way we can make our EMS and Healthcare systems better. And I believe it can be done by anybody, at any level, within our organizations. So, I decided to start a podcast about it and share this information with anyone who is interested. I'm learning this podcasting thing as we go, maybe you'll join me on the journey.