Summary
- The implementation of a comprehensive, technology-enabled care operating system, capable of continual redesign for ongoing improvement, is the key to embedding quality and safety within clinical operations and enhancing system performance.
High-quality health care is a moral and ethical obligation to health system leaders and a strategic imperative. It is a mandate that directly impacts clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, the well-being of patients and staff, and a health system’s overall performance.
Focusing on specific quality and safety goals within clinical operations can significantly improve health care delivery for both patients and the workforce. The Institute of Medicine's six Aims for Improvement are essential elements that underpin a resilient system, and are necessary to formulate and fulfill actions that improve the quality of care: safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity.
Lead by Example: Take Action to Improve Care Delivery
Leadership commitment to designing the best possible experience of giving and receiving care is crucial for both engaging the work force and achieving optimal patient outcomes.
Health care leaders must communicate and collaborate more effectively to operationalize a system of continuous learning and improvement. Adopting the following clinical actions and strategic approaches can lead to successful and sustainable improvements in care systems.
- Safety Management System: Establish clinical guidelines and frameworks rooted in the latest research and best practices to confirm compliance with the highest standards of patient safety.
- Feedback Mechanism: Cultivate a supportive environment where staff feel respected and heard. Actively encourage staff to report errors and near misses without fear of retribution. Promote a culture of continuous improvement by valuing and acting on staff feedback. Celebrate feedback that leads to system improvements to promote proactive learning while engaging the workforce.
- Workflow Optimization: Design tech-enabled workflows that guide clinicians toward best practices while minimizing the risk of errors.
- Continuous Professional Development: Encourage ongoing education and training opportunities for frontline staff and care team professionals.
- Data Analytics: Leverage a data management strategy that pulls key information from clinical and reporting sources and routes insights back into the clinicians’ and leaders’ workflows.
- Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Work as a cohesive unit, with input from Operations, IT/Informatics, Quality, and Analytics teams, to design a system that drives successful clinical operations.
- Equal Access to Care: Advance health equity by improving access to care through initiatives like mobile health clinics and community outreach programs that serve diverse patient populations, helping to eradicate inequities in access, treatment, and outcomes.
IHI CareOS: Dynamic and Sustainable Quality Improvement in Health Care
IHI Care Operating System (IHI CareOS) is an integrated suite of services and products, engineered for resiliency and continual system redesign. It provides care teams with real-time feedback while connecting clinical care, operations, informatics, and analytics in a practical, tech-enabled learning and management system, benefiting both patients and practitioners. IHI CareOS focuses on fixing systems, not people, recognizing that individual performance is a property of the system.
Incorporating feedback mechanisms, best practices, and data analytics into clinical workflows, and allowing for continuous monitoring of safety risks, optimization of patient flow, and enhanced experiences for both patients and clinicians leads to improved outcomes, operational efficiency, and reduced burnout rates. In doing so, IHI CareOS helps health system leaders achieve their goals in safety and care quality.
Josh Clark, RN, MHA, is the Vice President of Quality & Safety Operating Systems at IHI.
A generative AI tool was used to help draft this post. IHI’s communications team and subject matter experts edited the output for accuracy, clarity, tone, and style.
Photo by Freepik
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