Tools

Tools

Align Quality and Safety Plan with Organizational Strategic Plan

•  Trillium Health Centre’s Quality and Patient Safety Plan demonstrates how the organization’s strategic aims can be aligned and cascaded throughout the organization.
•  Also, view Trillium Health Centre’s panel presentation on the Excellent Care for All Act, presented at OHA HealthAchieve 2010
•  The Ottawa Hospital Quality Framework aligns with the indicators that demonstrate the execution of the quality plan.
  “Leading Quality on Canadian Boards:  The Ottawa Hospital Experience” (PowerPoint Presentation, Dr. James Nininger)
• Sample agenda from the
•  The Saskatchewan Health Quality Council developed the Quality as a Business Strategy program, which helps senior managers and board members integrate quality into their organization.The Ottawa Hospital Board Quality Council
• Quality as a Business Strategy is a program involving learning workshops and materials which help senior leaders and board members integrate quality into their organizations.

Use the Quality and Safety Plan to Focus Board Agenda

• Providence Health Care in Seattle created a Quality Strategic Plan, and has seven associated questions aimed to foster wise strategic thinking about quality and safety (PowerPoint presentation available at www.ihi.org):
1. Are we clear about our quality strategic aims and are we focused on the most important improvement opportunities to achieve those aims?
2. Is there a solid strategic rationale for the annual and long-term improvement goals that management is recommending?
3. Are we improving fast enough to meet our annual and long-term improvement goals?
4. Do we have any systemic weaknesses that should be addressed to meet our internal improvement aims and/or to respond to external demands for data and accountability?
5. Are there any individual facilities or programs that have weak improvement capabilities or insufficient capacity to improve?
6. What are our experiences with improvement telling us about changes that are necessary in our Quality Strategic Plan?
7. Are we sparking innovation, finding and systematically spreading best outcome practices and great ideas?
•  Alberta Quality Matrix for Health User Guide. This framework provides a common language, understanding and approach for thinking about quality among healthcare organizations, professionals and other stakeholders.
• Mohr et al. (2002) suggested that key questions for boards to ask around quality are:
• What initiatives has the organization undertaken to assess the safety of its patient care environment?
• How is improving patient safety addressed in the organization’s mission statement?
• Does the organization have an overall approach and plan for patient safety?
• Does the patient safety plan include senior-level leadership, defined objectives, personnel and sufficient budget to accomplish its goals?
• Should the organization create a position of chief safety officer in the executive management group?
• What is the organization doing to create a culture of safety?
• What is the plan for regular patient safety progress reports to the executive committee and board of directors?

Recommended Reading:

• Mycek, S (2002) “Patient Safety: It Starts with the Board” Trustee 54(5):8-12.
  This article includes a checklist developed by Stephen DeLashmutt which asks, “What makes a quality plan?”