Resources

Spreading, scaling up, and sustaining improvements in human services is a complex challenge that many countries, including the UK, USA, and Australia, have been tackling. Despite significant efforts, the sustainability of scaling up local improvements remains low. One reason for this is the traditional, linear approach to spreading improvements, which often overlooks the complexity and evolving nature of healthcare systems.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has introduced the concept of Quality Improvement (QI) ‘dosing’, where different staff roles receive tailored levels of improvement science (SOI) training based on their responsibilities. 

Implementation is often a weak link in improvement efforts to meet targets. Yet the success and sustainability of change depends on it. The Implementation Playbook is a quick reference guide developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to facilitate effective health-related implementation efforts.

Trying to improve care in human services can be overwhelming. We start out with great aspirations to fix a care quality issue. But as we get closer to the problem it appears to loom ever larger, and we wonder what we’ve got ourselves into. Most care quality issues are entrenched and multifaceted and can’t be solved by a single solution or big-bang change. Often our initial enthusiasm wanes and we default to revising the procedure and running training because everything else seems too hard. Essentially, we’ve wasted time and effort on maintaining the problem, rather than finding the solution.

Engagement surveys show a never-before-seen level of fatigue and burn-out. The last results of the National Health Service (NHS) national staff survey showed 46.8% of staff have felt unwell as a result of work-related stress in the previous 12 months. Attrition and turnover are at near all-time highs.

In this Lightbulb Moment webinar, Dr Cathy Balding interviewed Allison Patchett to discuss her "ah-ha!" moment about quality and efficiency - symbiotic or siloed?

In this Lightbulb Moment webinar, Dr Cathy Balding interviewed Filomena Ciavarella to discuss her "ah-ha!" moment about the difference between quality and quality systems.

Here is a list of resources to help managers and senior leaders help their teams become accreditation-ready every day.

In this Lightbulb Moment webinar, Dr Cathy Balding spoke with experienced safety and quality practitioner Cathy Jones about her first safety and quality "ah-ha!" moment about quality plans. They explored the ‘when, what and why’ of Cathy Jones’ lightbulb moment.

Care and service improvement requires the ability to make successful local change, then to transfer this for implementation in other departments and services, or across a whole organisation or sector. However, research shows that highly institutionalised and complex healthcare systems find the spread of transformation difficult, being naturally slow to adapt, innovate, and improve. Change therefore usually happens incrementally and inconsistently, with successful innovation resembling a journey rather than a single event. This is characterised by processes of adoption, implementation, sustaining, spreading, and scaling up.