Quality

• Measuring level of staff engagement with patients and successful screenings
• Coaching and peer-to-peer training of staff
• Building physician awareness and education

What can your team do to increase staff and patient engagement? What type of coaching does your team need to be succesful? 

• Printing out registration slips with questions regarding smoking, so smokers can identify themselves up front
• Attaching the registration slips to clipboards, so when patients hand the materials to the genetics counselors, the counselors can provide smoking cessation information

What can your team do to help members know what type of programs are available to them? 

• Working with information technology staff to get a list of eligible 11- and 12-year-old girls, and contacting parents and making appointments for those patients
• Discussing the importance of the vaccine with patients and their parents
• Scheduling the two follow-up booster shots at the time of the first shot, which required working with IT colleagues to modify the appointment system

What can your team do with technology to reach out to members letting them know what screenings and vaccinations they need?

• Treating every patient as a fall risk and ensuring each patient is accompanied
• Installing bed alarms to let staff know when a patient was trying to sit up
• Rounding on patients hourly to get them out of bed and into the bathroom safely

What can your team do to reduce slips, trips and falls in your area? What else could your team do to create a culture of safety?

• Implementing a quiet zone to allow staff to better concentrate
• Shifting work schedules so more staff are available during peak hours
• Communicating one on one with pharmacy staff about changes being made and why, and what data show

What can your team do to effectively respond to workflow and target changes? What else could your team do to meet targeted goals?

• Using signs as a visual reminder to nurses and other staff to lift and transport patients safely
• Communicating face-to-face and at huddles about patient-lifting equipment and procedures

What can your team do to remind each other to use patient-lifting procedures? What else could your team do to prevent injuries when lifting or transporting patients?

• Studying what other labs were doing and researching the latest technology
• Collaborating on the purchase of new equipment and gaining support to fast-track the installation
• Cross-training staff on use of new equipment and departmental processes

What can your team do to be more collaborative with departments you frequently work with? What else could your team do to cross-train staff?

• Posting calendar of patient falls in the department to increase visibility of the issue
• Huddling daily and including a safety briefing
• Educating patients about the precautions they can take when they need to get out of bed

What can your team do to focus on creating a culture of safety? 

• Researching and trying different breathing equipment
• Improving communication among team members and other health care workers, such as wound nurses
• Focusing on fixing problems, not blaming each other

What can your team do to increase awareness of how equipment can impact patient care? 

• Giving injections in the exam room, rather than the injection clinic
• Limiting the choice for physicians to two versions of the same vaccine to choose from—instead of several
• Huddling among medical assistants and physicians once or twice a day to determine which of their incoming patients need vaccines. Medical assistants then have the shots ready for those patients