From Paper to Progress: Quality Management's Role in Faciliating Unit Based Change

Purpose:
Despite participation in NDNQI, our nursing units were not maximizing the use of our unit specific data. We recognized an opportunity to develop unit based initiatives to improve the quality of our nursing care.

Significance:
Nursing quality is the cornerstone to safe, satisfied patients and staff. Data rich and outcome poor, we realized that were under-utilizing our unit based data. A partnership between nursing and quality enabled both departments to reap the benefits of each profession's expertise.

Strategy and Implementation:
Nursing expressed a desire to operationalize NDNQI data but was unsure how to begin to dissect, disseminate, and plan for evidenced based change. Our research council and nursing leadership recognized the need for assistance in mobilizing data into change initiatives. The quality manager partnered with nursing unit leadership to develop a plan for creating change initiatives based on a consultancy model. This model enabled each unit to develop unit-specific change based on unit identified stregnths, weaknesses, interests, and priorities. The 8 Steps for QM's Role: 1. Research unit based dashboards 2. Creation of Excel workbooks, coordination of data collection 3. Demo sample dashboards at nursing meetings 4. Using Your Numbers Intro to Data class 5. Unit level meetings to interpret data 6. Assist in prioritizing, coordinating, planning for change 7. Consultant/coach for implementation 7. Assist in data analysis/evaluation 8. Assist with dissemination

Evaluation:
The model is currently being implemented. Short terms success is measured by the number of pilots and projects implemented since the initiation of the partnership model. Long term successes will be measured by improvement in identified outcome indicatorsand by number of project abstracts generated.

Implications for Practice:
Our organization was having difficulty initiating evidenced based change. This model serves as a template for best practices for other organizations that are struggling to develop robust data-based change projects and offers a unique approach to partnering to implement unit specific change.