Using Simulation Exercises to Find Breakthrough Results in Quality Improvement
When health care leaders and professionals want to undertake improvement projects in their practice or organization, they often need help honing in on where to start. Unfortunately, that stagnancy leads to a lack of progress.
“If we continue to do what we’re doing, we continue to get the results that we’re getting. If we want better results, we have to do something that is not a continuation of what we’ve been doing in the past,” says M. Rashad Massoud, MD, MPH, FACP, Program Director of Health Care Quality Improvement: From Design to Implementation at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Executive and Continuing Education center. “Improvement essentially means change. Without change, we won’t improve.”
Of course, not every change is necessarily an improvement. Therefore, the only way to know if there has been an improvement is to measure progress as you go. In the program, participants engage in real-life case studies that analyze the practical application of how to design, develop, and implement a health care improvement project.
“We’re going to learn how to set an aim for improvement that’s achievable, that’s measurable, that is worthwhile and that will serve our purposes,” says Massoud, who is also a Harvard Chan School visiting lecturer at the Department of Global Health and Population and the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.
The Power of Simulations
In the same way they will eventually utilize improvements in a health care organization, participants in Health Care Quality Improvement: From Design to Implementation use ideas, principles and science to implement personal improvements. Often, these simulation exercises are personal wellness projects, such as getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, or eating healthy. Along the way, they make the necessary measurements to track implementation goals, and receive guidance on how to accurately implement these aims.
“I get them to do something quite simple,” Massoud explains, noting that the application of a theory is adjusted to the reality of a student in school, and covers building a process all the way from developing the aim statement to acting on the results of the tests in order to make continuous improvements. “They have full control over part of their everyday life, so they can measure it every day, and within less than a couple of months, they’ve got a significant result on a personal level.
Working with Patients
When a patient is living with a chronic disease like diabetes or hypertension, physicians generally spend around 15-to-30 minutes with them, two to four times a year. Participants enrolled in the course are taught that working in partnership with patients to make informed decisions during the time they spend outside the doctor’s office is critical to the outcome’s success.
“Getting them to be part of that work, and working with them on solutions that actually yield the results and can be maintained is critical,” says Massoud.
The course teaches professionals not only how to properly set this up, but how to develop those changes while working with patients, and subsequently testing those changes and seeing what the results are.
Who Needs to Further Their Knowledge?
When it comes to exploring how to undertake improvement projects in your practice, the program’s scope casts a wide net. The program pulls from diverse career paths, including:
- Senior leaders with training in health care improvement seeking a practical application for future projects
- Mid-level health care staff preparing for future improvement projects
- Physician and nurse leaders
- Health center leaders and executive directors
- Laboratory scientists
- Health care project managers
- Various health care personnel
“Anybody who’s interested in making improvements would be the right person to join,” says Massoud. “Whoever wants to improve is somebody who can do this.”
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offers Health Care Quality Improvement: From Design to Implementation, an online program that will take you through the journey of implementing an improvement project that leads to results.
