Welcome to this session of Sharing Improvement Stories. There is power in sharing stories. Think back to when you were a child and heard those now familiar stories. Sharing our stories is how we learn. Sharing our improvement stories helps everyone learn about what you are doing. Through sharing improvement stories we can involve everyone, the dayshift and the nightshift, the weekend as well as the weekday staff. I'm Melody Malone, a Quality Improvement Consultant with TMF Health Quality Institute and I'm happy to bring you this session today on Sharing Improvement Stories. But before we begin, let's remember that as we share our improvement stories regarding our quality improvement effort, we're striving to learn about our mistakes and errors and we must never forget the potential human toll as a result of both our clinical errors and errors in our business practices. Even though we speak a lot about data and we're talking about sharing our quality improvement stories we must always remember that all of this may actually have hurt a human being or had the potential to hurt someone. Every resident matters. Every staff member matters. Every visitor and guest matters.
So, in sharing our improvement story we can have some fun. Now, what we're really talking about though is change and change is hard right? But keep in mind if you do what you've always done you're going to get what you've always gotten. So, we have to venture out and try something new to fix our errors. And haven't you changed? Step into that way back machine and see yourself as you were when you were just out of high school or just out of college or even at your first job in healthcare. Think about how you were then and how you are now. Woo, thank goodness for change, because I know I've changed a lot. But we don't want to keep having failures, but we want to learn from our failures. And if we fail forward we learn and in sharing that learning we can help others. They can learn from our lessons. Think about it. Have you ever learned from someone else's failure? I know I have. We can also learn from their successes. And remember, not all problems are completely unique and need a completely unique solution. The solution may only be tweaked for your setting. I recently heard that if we look at change as what happens to us it is external to us. Then we what we do as individuals is to transition. It's internal. It's how we react to change. Through sharing our improvement stories we help others in the change effort and to transition the new state, to the new way of working, to the new process.
So, how can you share your improvement stories and there are many ways to tell stories, but the best stories come from those impacted by the issue. Through the stories of the residents told in their own voice the impression on the staff can be very powerful. When you invite a resident or family member to tell their story of how the error impacted them, it helps the resident to have some healing as well as it empowers them to engage in the quality improvement process with you. It also keeps it human for us. We never want to lose sight of
those involved. The same is true when the staff tell their story. They get a chance to heal and help through the participation of a quality improvement team. But it's not always possible to have a live storyteller. That's when a storyboard can help. Quality Improvement storyboarding is an organized way of displaying the quality improvement process that a team is working on systematically to resolve their specific problem or to improve a given process. Through storyboarding you get to tell your quality improvement story in an organized way. You harness that power of the visual and the storyboard helps you depict your process improvement. What really worked? It gives the user real content, but it's easy to digest. And it provides an embraceable approach that really needs little explanation and you get to highlight your accomplishments. How great is that? Storyboards will generate conversation among those not actively working in the quality improvement process. Vendors, other staff, visitors as well as residents and family will be able to see what you're doing, track your progress and they may help you to foster more ideas. A storyboard can help generate consensus and connect the entire facility to the quality improvement process. A storyboard also gives ownership to the process to the entire team. And a great tip is keep some sticky notepads and a pen attached; that way people can add ideas or raise questions. And your team can generate momentum from a storyboard. Think of storyboarding as a colorful way to share what you're doing all along the way. And don't think to do the storyboard only at the end, but start building your storyboard as the team is forming and beginning their work. By building it and sharing it all along the journey it includes more people in the overall quality improvement process. You might be surprised at the ideas your storyboard will generate as well as the excitement from what you are doing. Through sharing stories whether it is with the residents telling their story to a team or through the team creating a storyboard you can share your successes, generate more ideas and get buy-in.
So, here's your next steps. Whether you use a storyboard or a resident or a staff member to tell their story of your quality improvement efforts, be sure to spread the news. It helps staff and residents and families to know your goals, to understand the changes you are making and it helps all to make that transition to the new state. Be sure to look for our tips on how to build a storyboard on our website and please share your successes as well as celebrate them. Sharing your team quality improvement efforts widely will help you in so many ways. We invite you to share your information with us in our forums on our website as well and feel free to call us if we can help you in any way. Have a blessed day.