October 2023 Newsletter
We are encouraged by the initiative and tenacity that our participants have shown, from bringing this opportunity to your emergency department (ED) to continued work with your hospital administration and legal departments to secure access to the National Pediatric Readiness Quality Initiative (NPRQI) data portal.
As we enter Phase 3 in the PRQC journey, we are seeing participating sites organizing their multidisciplinary teams, finalizing the selection of a clinical area of focus, and utilizing NPRQI to collect baseline data.
Over the next three months, your ED team will embark on your first Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle.
Breaking down the PDSA Cycle...
The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is shorthand for testing a change — by planning it, testing it, observing results, and acting on what has been learned.
Plan
To support your quality improvement work, we encourage your site to adopt an implementation plan. This plan includes the development of a SMART Aim. During our October 17 collaborative session, our experts will further explore crafting a Global and SMART Aim. Register for this session here.
Do
After you have finalized your plan for implementing the change and how to measure its success, you are ready for implementation . PDSA cycles are meant to be rapid tests of change, but the process will depend on your site's pediatric patient volume and team support. Review our intervention bundles for suggested strategies.
Study
Following a period of implementation, your team will assess the current performance in light of the established SMART Aim. At this juncture, your team will evaluate your site’s performance dashboard and interpret how the change strategy has influenced performance. Consider things like: Was it successful? What feedback was gathered?
Act
At the end of these three months, your team will decide whether to adopt, adapt, or abandon the current cycle within your ED. Your team will reflect on this performance and collectively decide whether to embrace or discard this change strategy, thereby completing a PDSA cycle. Feel free to abandon a change strategy; there are no failures in QI, just learning.
We would love to hear from YOUR site about your plans for this first PDSA cycle. If you would like to share any small or big success you have experienced, your SMART Aim, or a change strategy your team feels inclined to implement, please share at collaboratives@emscimprovement.center. We are excited to highlight all the work and would like to provide opportunities to learn from one another and exchange ideas. These presentations will start during our next session on October 17.
What should my site be working on this month?
Is your site ready to implement its first change strategy?
Make sure you have:
- Completed the environmental scan
- Developed an implementation plan
- Identified a clinical area of focus
- Entered 25-30 patient encounters for baseline data
Please make every effort to complete baseline data entry to ensure your site keeps pace with the collaborative and completes 3-4 PDSA cycles by December 2024. By working through at least 3-4 PDSA cycles, your site will develop and implement strategies that ensure the sustainability of your efforts, ultimately leading to improvements that will surpass the initial performance achieved in the first few PDSA cycles.
Issues accessing the NPRQI data portal?
If you have received your secure login credentials and still having issues with accessing the NPRQI data portal, please email Clario Support Team. If you need to add or remove users, please email liza.hinojosa@austin.utexas.edu.