HILL HEALTH CORPORATION

Performance Improvement

What is Performance Improvement Anyway???

It is a continuous effort to find new and improved ways to do the things we do in every department, and by every staff member.  For example, it means getting better results, better outcomes, improved patient health, improved patient satisfaction, doing more at less cost, decreasing patient waiting times. 

It is about improving systems and processes, not just how we work as individuals.  Every department at Hill Health Center has a performance improvement project.  All staff should make sure that they know what project their department is seeking to improve, and be familiar with the methods. 

The process for Performance Improvement is:

Design- to develop a plan that is thought to improve a process

Measure-to collect information (data) that will allow us to compare what we used to do with what we believe to be an improvement.

Assess- we review the data to determine whether the change we have made is only a change, or an actual improvement. 

Improve-based on our assessment of the data, we continue on the cycle with making changes again which we think will get us further improvements.   

The Performance Improvement Committee is a group of staff from throughout the organization, represented by a multitude of disciplines and sites.  It meets monthly, and is charged with continuously reviewing the operations and systems of Hill Health Center and its multitude of sites, with the goal of making improvements.  Much of the activity involves collecting and analyzing information (data) regarding everything from injuries to staff reported by incident reports, to medication reactions of patients, to how well we respond to a system failure such as a power outage or telephone system failure.  There are a number of sub-committees of PIC, and they include Infection Control, Safety and Environment of Care, Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Health Information, Customer Service, Credentialing, Patient Education, Peer Review and Seamless Integration. 

A few examples of improvements that have taken place as a result of the work of the various committees include the following:

• Enhanced patient education materials available to patients, through printed materials, wall posters, videos, and waiting room health information, and a patient education resource room in the Columbus Ave. clinic.

• Competency assessments and quality control for clinic based glucose tests to assure accuracy.

• Timely response to patient complaints and problems to enhance patient satisfaction.

• Dramatic improvement in the care of adult diabetic patients, with significant outcome changes to document this.

• Significant improvements in how care is delivered to children with asthma, including participation in a national collaborative on asthma in the Pediatric Department to improve the control of asthma care.

• Monthly monitoring of charts and charting standards, with a resultant standardization of charts and charting methods throughout the organization, within the Health Information department.

• An active system of peer review in which providers give and receive feedback on the standards of care provided.

Some projects presently underway include: 

• A program to identify patients with Pre-Diabetes, a condition in which blood sugar is higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be called diabetes, and to help them prevent this from developing into Diabetes.

• An intervention to improve the number  of patients at South Central Rehabilitation Center who complete their detoxification program.

• Re-design of the patient group sessions at Grant Street Partnership  to enhance the client experience during these counseling sessions.

• The development of a system to track and prevent abnormal laboratory tests from not being reported to providers who have ordered these tests.

What are some of the methods we use to analyze data?

A few examples of how data is used can be demonstrated from the following graphs and tables.

This graph shows that the patients who have been identified with Pre-Diabetes and agreed to work with our Health Promotion staff led to a significant number (more than 80 of the 100) setting goals for themselves, and that 60 patients, or 60% actually accomplished their goals.

The next chart shows the growth in volume of patient visits at Hill Health Corporation during the past 7 years.  Graphing enables us to look at trends that we might not otherwise notice without comparing several years together.  Use of data allows us to know where we have started, and where we are going.  Baseline data also allows us to know when something we have started out with, actually has led us to an improvement or not. 

 How can you be a part of performance improvement at Hill Health Center?

Find out what projects your department is involved in and see how you can help.

Let your supervisor know of problem areas you are aware of, and even better, possible solutions if you have any ideas.  Offer to serve on a committee at HHC that is working to make the organization better.

Hill Health Center Employees can access other performance improvement projects by clicking here.