Performance improvement

How-To Guide: 10-Minute Tools for Service Excellence

The KP Value Compass commits us to delivering the best quality and service at the most affordable price, in the best place to work. And here’s the thing about service—everybody knows how to tell bad from good and good from great.

 

It’s not easy, in the crunch of a busy workday, to give every member and patient great service every time they call or visit. But these three simple tools can help. Each can be learned quickly and can be discussed, used and perfected by your team:

 

How-To Guide: Data Collection

At Kaiser Permanente, the patient is at the center of all decision making, and metrics can help us see at a glance the impact—positive or negative—that a team's decisions have had on a patient. The key to good metrics is finding the few, vital pieces of information that help us understand that impact.  

 

“The purpose of measurement in quality improvement work is for learning, not judgment,” says Bob Lloyd, the executive director of performance improvement at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, an independent nonprofit in Massachusetts. 

 

Early Shift Ensures On-Time Labs

  • Having lab assistants, not runners, pick up blood samples at 6 a.m. and drop off specimens every half-hour
  • Using clinical lab scientists from other departments to help process blood in the morning
  • Moving weekend shifts for clinical lab scientists to 6 a.m. instead of 9 a.m.

 What can your team do to shift its workflow for the benefit of patients? 

Coordinate Orders to Save Lives

  • Educating about the proper use of VTE orders for post-operative patients
  • Coordinating with pharmacists and other teams to ensure orders are followed
  • Outlining how the Joint Commission's SCIP guidelines can help improve compliance

 What can your team do to work with other teams to improve outcomes for patients? 

 

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