Spreading Quality Improvement

Overview

IHQC’s course on Spreading Quality Improvement will equip participants with the skills and resources needed to effectively spread improvement initiatives to new sites and departments in their organization. Teams will be coached on best practices for assessing if their initiative is ready for spread and how to build the tools, structures, and communication channels to support new teams, sites and departments as they implement this initiative.

Sample Project

Spreading a comprehensive diabetic management program for high-risk diabetics to new sites within the clinic organization

Case Study

A clinic team enrolled in IHQC’s Spreading Quality Improvement course to help spread their diabetes self-management program to new clinic sites within their organization. Their pilot program included: established care team guidelines and protocols, HbA1c screenings, retinal scans, referral to health education and exercise classes, patient diabetes self-management education, and medication management. Supported by the tools and coaching they received from IHQC, the clinic was able to spread their diabetes self-management program to all four of their clinic sites, and the percentage of patients with documented self-management goals went from 26% to 81%. Furthermore, they trained more Medical Assistants to do population management and motivational interviewing; improved support systems and diabetes workflows; improved clinic cycle time, and enhanced ability internal capacity to collect and use data to improve patient care.

  • “[Our Spreading Quality Improvement Project] put a framework to how a project like this should be spread. It’s not just ‘let’s start doing it.’ It’s about building our infrastructure….We enhanced the program overall, even at [the pilot site]. We can see the end results at more than just one location. Even at [the pilot site], there are more tools available to us.”

    BCCQ Participant
  • “I don’t think one week goes by without saying we’re going to try a small process improvement and if it works we’re going to spread it elsewhere.” “[The] team has the intention to spread. I believe that it’s beginning to happen. Sometimes it takes a stutter step… but we need to get really good at it before trying to get everyone else to do it.”

    BCCQ Participant

Like This Program?

Like this program? In order to be eligible for this 3-month Spreading Quality Improvement course, participants must to have an existing QI project/initiative that the clinic wants to embed, sustain, or spread. The project should have outcomes that demonstrate improvement and should have taken steps to embed their improvement project (document clinic workflows, revise teams roles/responsibilities and job duties, documented measurement plan, etc.). The organization/team must also be familiar with QI fundamentals, have clinical and administrative leadership that support this initiative; have some staff and organizational experience implementing quality improvement initiatives; and have an active QI committee that meets regularly to guide improvement work.

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IHQCSpreading Quality Improvement