If you can provide more accurate and timely
indicator information to users, then each person
on your team will have more time to react and
work to improve the performance of their measures.
This is truly Smarter Reporting when compared
to the typical manually generated monthly/quarterly
report of measures.
Imagine how smoothly your organization
could work if indicators could automatically
be delivered to the appropriate person as soon
as something happened for that measure (e.g.
new period of data available).
Imagine the success your Quality Improvement
efforts could realize by fully deploying the
role of the Process Expert and making their
actions transparent.
And, imagine the Process Improvement
activities that could be performed by the staff
who are currently manually reporting on all
of your indicators if the reporting process
could truly be automated.
More time to focus on Process Improvement =
Better Outcomes.
Here are some basic challenges you face
for reporting:
 |
MANY different indicators
need to be tracked
A typical organization is tracking well
over 1,000 measures. And the reality is
that more are always being added. An organization
that is truly practicing Continuous Performance
Improvement is constantly adding new indicators
as their processes evolve. |
|
Indicator data is EVERYWHERE
in your organization
Health Care organizations are a long way
from centralizing all of their data. And
when organizations begin this exercise,
they often have multiple copies of the same
data which do not stay in sync. Nothing
can damage the integrity of a reporting
system quicker than having changes to underlying
data not be reflected in reports which are
distributed to management and physicians. |
|
Different indicator values
available at different times during the
reporting period
Indicators flow at their own rates. Indicators
flow at their own rates. When you start
a new period, you could immediately expose
the total number of admissions or discharges
from the previous period. But other measures
can take more time to reconcile, with the
result typically being that data is released
when the last measure is reconciled. |
|
Need to utilize Statistical
Process Control (SPC) techniques to clearly
identify unusual variations in performance
As you know, data for various measures naturally
fluctuates from month to month (e.g. Inpatient
Volume). So you need to utilize SPC to help
identify when there is a real trend or some
unusual variation given the past performance.
The challenge with using SPC techniques
is that it typically requires advanced statistical
knowledge to ensure that the correct analysis
is performed (it is very common for users
with desktop tools to be using a P Chart
for Falls / 1000 Patient Days rather then
a U chart). In addition, desktop packages
or Excel plug-ins do not provide automation
which makes the manual reporting processes
most organizations use even more tedious. |
|
Need to provide both management
and operational reporting
Management typically wants to see their
reports quarterly. To effectively manage
your processes, you should also be reporting
on many of the same indicators monthly for
the operational team. Doing so allows the
operational team to make adjustments to
the performance of these measures much more
quickly than waiting for the quarter to
complete. The challenge is to make sure
that your data is in synch between the monthly
and quarterly reports. What you really want
to do is to use the same data source rather
than have different copies of the data (e.g.
separate monthly and quarterly spreadsheets).
Your reporting system should then be able
to roll the data up Monthly, Quarterly,
Semiannually, Yearly, etc. to give the appropriate
people access to the time periods of interest.
|
Here are the recommendations for reducing
the time it takes to get accurate information
to users:
|
Eliminate multiple copies
of the same data
Maintaining multiple copies of the data
compromises the integrity of your reports.
If individual departments are responsible
for maintaining their own data sets which
are in turn sent to another department that
is creating the integrated reports, how
do you ensure that any changes made to the
data end up in the distributed report? If
a single data source is being used, then
this is easy. But when there are multiple
copies of the same data floating around
in an organization (e.g. multiple Excel
files), then integrity of the distributed
reports is severely compromised. When monthly
and quarterly reports are needed for the
same measures, you should be able to use
the same source data and summarize it accordingly
for the desired time interval. Deploying
a system with this type of flexibility will
help to ensure accuracy and consistency
throughout your reports. |
|
Allow indicators to flow
at their natural rates
The various measures in your organization
become available at different times after
the close of a reporting period. Rather
then batch up your reporting and delay releasing
all of the measures until the last measure
is reconciled, allow them to be released
as each is ready. If this seems difficult
to imagine, it is because of the manual
reporting process that you are currently
performing. Manual processes don't lend
themselves to releasing information in a
piecemeal fashion. |
|
Provide Process Experts with the tools
they need to communicate improvement plans
and process changes to users
To truly practice Performance Improvement,
you need to make individuals responsible
for the performance of specific measures
and give them the tools that they need
to do their jobs. You need to make it
easy for them to communicate improvement
actions and assessments to users interested
in the measures in their area of responsibility.
For example:
| * |
Make it easy for Process Experts
to provide assessment and Action Plans |
| * |
Make it easy to identify changes
made to the process and whether
those changes had a statistically
significant impact on the process
outcome |
| * |
Provide tools to allow them to compare
the performance of various units /
departments and to identify who is
performing statistically better or
worse than their peers |
Example of Process Changes identified
by the Process Expert
|
|
Allow users to interactively identify
those measures they are most interested
in now
Most health care organizations are tracking
thousands of measures internally. No one
in the organization needs to see all of
these measures; they typically only need
to access a handful. And the list of measures
being tracked (e.g. Nursing Manager) is
going to change over time. Therefore,
make it easy for users to configure this
list of measures . And make it very easy
for a user to access the display of those
measures. Here is a popular output choice
when the user is interested in 12 or fewer
indicators:
|
|
Allow users to be automatically notified
when changes happen to those measures
that they are interested in; i.e., a subscription.
- New data is available or data for the
most recent period changes
- Process Expert does anything on their
indicators, including:
* Adds / changes a Comment
/ Action Plan for a reporting period
* Identifies / changes
a Process Phase
* Validates that recent
data is accurate
- New data comes in and there
is unusual variation
- New data comes in and it triggers
an SPC alarm
Example Email Notification
|
Learn more and see a solution in action that
truly implements Smarter Reporting and will
help you meet your Performance Improvement goals:
View a webinar on Performance
Improvement through Smarter Reporting
View a webinar on Successful
Performance Improvement Initiatives - The Role
of the Process Expert
Statit is here to help. If you would like to
learn more, give us a call at (541) 752-4500
or send us an email at
.
