Improvement Insights Blog

Healthcare has begun to focus on evidence-based practice (EBP) using the tools of quality. Here’s where we are and what can be done to accelerate healthcare quality.

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals,” and QI Macros [software].

“I was out at the Magnet conference, it’s a big conference for nurses in healthcare. This is the Johns Hopkins Guide for Evidence Based Practice or EBP. Now if you get into this book a little bit, the first part is doing a literature search to find out what everybody else has done; I think we call that benchmarking. Then further back in the book it talks about PDSA to do improvement. Now, to become a Magnet-certified hospital, you have to do 200 improvement projects… 200.

“You know, I looked at all the posters [at the conference] and they’re still using basically line, bar and pie charts. About 89% or 90% of the charts were line and bar charts and pie charts, which means we’re not using the Tools of Quality, even though it talks about PDSA in here. Deming would probably be rolling over in his grave!

“I want you to get this idea that I think we could achieve hassle-free healthcare. I think we could start doing it very quickly, but we have to focus. We have to use my tools for Agile Process Innovation to simplify, streamline and optimize every step in the healthcare process so there’s no mistakes, no errors, no patient harm. I think that’s entirely possible.

“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week. Let’s go out and improve something this week… like healthcare!”