Self-improvement Project Worksheet

HA3110

Healthcare Quality Improvement & Risk Management

1. Perhaps the most widely used improvement model is the PDSA model which is what you will use for your self-improvement project in this course.

2. You have the autonomy to choose your project from this list:

a. accepting criticism 

b. budgeting (personal or family) 

c. communication skills  

d. healthy Lifestyle (includes weight loss, diet and exercise) 

e. smoking cessation 

f. stress reduction 

g. stress related to time management 

h. time management.

3. Due to time constraints and the scope of this course, your measures and resulting data display has been done for you.

Use this form for your work: Just click in the box and type, although with extensive dialogue, the format might change, but it will not affect the content of the document.

1. What is it you want to improve: (Also referred to as your Aim Statement)

2. How much: 3. By when:

3. By completing the above, you have described how you will know if the changes create

Plan

an improvement.

4. What Likert Survey and run chart will you use?

Complete to here for LP3.2 Drop Box: Project Topic

This is where you continue your planning stage (perhaps the most important phase of the PDSA cycle). Find evidence-based information on best practice related to your topic. Remember, in quality improvement it is not always up to you to reinvent the wheel. What works for others and supported by studies and research should work for you. (However, always give them credit when credit is due). Although you will be using the Likert survey, you are required to provide the “theory” behind you work.

In your update for Week 4, provide a review of how you have implemented the Plan stage of the PDSA Improvement Model (250-350 words). Copy any paste your response to the LP4.2 drop box.

Plan

In the ideal situation, you would begin the DO stage by testing on a small scale.

Here you will carry out test changes based on your evidence-based research and the Likert Survey (which is based on evidence-based resources) list them here:

DO

Discuss the progress of the Do Stage your improvement project, include:  1. Your aim statement. 2. Describe the change you have made, is there more than one? 3. Why you chose these changes, are they evidence based? 4. What data are you collecting and how do you intend to display it? 5. Provide a brief summary of how you have incorporated the PDSA Improvement Model up to this point. Length (at least 250-350 words).

Copy and paste the above into the LP5.2 Drop Box

Apply Risk Management thinking to your self-improvement project. Answer:

1. what can potentially go wrong

2. what are limiting factors for success

3. what can be done to prevent failure?

Study

Copy and paste the above into the LP6.2 Drop Box

Use the space below to document problems and unexpected observations:

You will fill out the Likert survey at the end of each week and fill in the box below with problems and/or unexpected observations as you go along.

Continue to utilize your worksheet, however there will be no need to submit any part of it in the drop box for here on out.

Although listed in steps, you begin the study stage right after implementing your first change by analyzing the results of your actions.

Again, in the ideal situation, the team would analyze the results and compare to your predictions.

By filling out your Likert Survey each week, you are able to study the results of your efforts with the run chart that auto-fills with your survey results. Run charts provide a data visualization at a swift glance and is one of the most useful data displays.

Project Title

Example of a well-prepared run chart:

Likert Survey score

Project Weeks

When you fill out the Likert survey provided to you, the run chart will be auto-filled with your results.

In the study phase you need to compare the actual results with your expectations – are you headed the right direction?

Summarize lessons learned during and after implementation of the changes.

Submit to LP 5 dropbox

In the ideal situation the team learns from its successes and failures to make a new plan in the PDSA cycle.

Act

See page 126 in your Spath textbook for a comprehensive PDSA Improvement Project report.

Remember, the Act stage is both the final stage of your process and the first stage of your next cycle.

If this were a small test, you would then implement changes on a larger scale (yes, another cycle) and track performance and data over time (which you have been doing for seven weeks).

A significant piece of the Act stage is to Plan how you will sustain or your efforts.

1. How will you prevent reverting to old ways of doing things?

a. Have you stabilized the process?

b. Do you practice your changes every day, sometimes, never? (Can you see the entire PDSA cycle starting all over again?)

2. Apply Reliability Management Skills to sustain your efforts:

Plan

Do

Study

Act