While most healthcare facilities have an extremely high success rate at the most challenging lifesaving work and we all know of friends and relatives who have had supreme care, mistakes are still made and patients’ lives have been put at risk and lost. How often have we heard politicians say after some disastrous report, "Lessons must be learned", but what does this really mean. Will responsible parties carry out a careful cause and effect analysis and methodically get to the root causes of the problem? Will sufficient steps be taken to permanently eradicate those causes and provide a permanent solution so that the problem will not reoccur? This is what is done in the aviation industry with the result that air travel is very safe. The low accident rate is achieved by studying the causes and using the methods of continuous improvement explained in this book. These methods are now becoming better known in the medical profession have been recommended in recent reports but are perhaps misunderstood at operational levels. This book is a basic level manual for those who have never been involved in any form of quality improvement project and is also suitable as a refresher for anyone wishing to familiarize themselves with the various techniques discussed. The aim of this book is to explain what continuous improvement is and why it’s needed; explain how individual departments can explain how and why continuous improvement is important, and helps readers recognize quality control methods in their own workplace and understand how to contribute to existing continuous improvement activities. While many of the case studies and examples are from the NHS, the author includes similar examples from around the world.

Note to Readers: Publisher does not guarantee quality or access to any included digital components if book is purchased through a third-party seller. Applied Problem-Solving in Healthcare Management is a practical textbook devoted to developing and strengthening problem-solving and decision-making leadership competencies of healthcare administration students and healthcare management professionals. Built upon the University of Minnesota Master of Healthcare Administration Program’s Problem-Solving Method, the text describes the “never assume” mindset and the structured method that drive evidence-based, action-oriented problem-solving. The “never assume” mindset requires healthcare leaders to understand themselves and their stakeholders, and to engage in waves of divergent and convergent thinking. This structured method guides the problem solver through the phases of defining, studying, and acting on complex interrelated organizational problems that involve multiple root causes. The book also describes how the Problem-Solving Method is complementary to quality improvement methods and can be used in healthcare organizations along with Lean, Design Thinking, and Human Centered Design. Providing step-by-step instruction including useful tips, tools, activities, and case studies, this effective resource demonstrates the utility of the method for all types of health organization settings including health systems, hospitals, clinics, population health, and long-term care. For students taking health management, capstone, and experiential learning courses, including internship and residency projects, this book allows them to test and apply their problem-solving and decision-making skills to real-world situations. Beyond the classroom, it is an indispensable resource for organizations seeking to enhance the problem-solving skills of their workforce. The authors of the text have nearly 75 years of combined experience in healthcare management, leadership, and professional consulting, and teaching and advising healthcare administration students in classrooms, on student capstone, internship and residency projects, and case competitions. Synthesizing their expertise, this text serves as a guide for those who wish to strengthen their problem-solving abilities to systematically identify, analyze, study, and solve pressing organizational challenges in healthcare settings. Key Features: Describes a mindset and a structured problem-solving method that builds leadership competencies Encourages a step-by-step problem-solving approach to define, study, and act on problems to drive action-oriented solutions Supports experiential learning and coaching for students and professionals early in their careers, applicable especially to healthcare management, capstone, and student consulting courses, internship and residency projects, case competitions, and professional development in organizations Compares the Problem-Solving Method to other complementary methods used in many healthcare organizations, including Lean, Design Thinking, and Human Centered Design

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The Institute of Medicine study Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) recommended that an interdisciplinary summit be held to further reform of health professions education in order to enhance quality and patient safety. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality is the follow up to that summit, held in June 2002, where 150 participants across disciplines and occupations developed ideas about how to integrate a core set of competencies into health professions education. These core competencies include patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. This book recommends a mix of approaches to health education improvement, including those related to oversight processes, the training environment, research, public reporting, and leadership. Educators, administrators, and health professionals can use this book to help achieve an approach to education that better prepares clinicians to meet both the needs of patients and the requirements of a changing health care system.

In the current atmosphere of closer scrutiny of healthcare practices and procedures, front-line managers and health care providers must investigate potential problems in their work environment, whether at the behest of upper management, in order to meet Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) standards, or through their own sense that "weÆre doing something wrong." For the investigator with limited previous experience in evaluation or research, the prospect of undertaking this kind of investigation can appear daunting, to say the least. Quality Improvement Projects in Health Care was written just for this individual. Author Eleanor Gilpatrick, a seasoned investigator and professor of health services administration, provides a review of the basic terminology and guidelines for carrying out "nuts-and-bolts" quality improvement research. She then demonstrates how such a research project can be implemented through 14 case studies involving actual health care situations. Altogether, the cases speak to a broad array of issues and potential pitfalls for the unwary investigatorùand they show that progress can be made in even the most difficult circumstances. Quality Improvement Projects in Health Care will be of interest to students and professionals in health sciences administration, nursing, allied health, and public health.

Wall Street Journal Bestseller New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath explores how to prevent problems before they happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers. So often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response. We put out fires. We deal with emergencies. We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems. Cops chase robbers, doctors treat patients with chronic illnesses, and call-center reps address customer complaints. But many crimes, chronic illnesses, and customer complaints are preventable. So why do our efforts skew so heavily toward reaction rather than prevention? Upstream probes the psychological forces that push us downstream—including “problem blindness,” which can leave us oblivious to serious problems in our midst. And Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored massive victories by switching to an upstream mindset. One online travel website prevented twenty million customer service calls every year by making some simple tweaks to its booking system. A major urban school district cut its dropout rate in half after it figured out that it could predict which students would drop out—as early as the ninth grade. A European nation almost eliminated teenage alcohol and drug abuse by deliberately changing the nation’s culture. And one EMS system accelerated the emergency-response time of its ambulances by using data to predict where 911 calls would emerge—and forward-deploying its ambulances to stand by in those areas. Upstream delivers practical solutions for preventing problems rather than reacting to them. How many problems in our lives and in society are we tolerating simply because we’ve forgotten that we can fix them?