Embedding a Data Driven Hospital Management Process to Drive Continuous Waiting List Improvement
Customer
Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) is one of Ireland’s major academic teaching hospitals. With 562 beds, 16 theatres and 26 critical care beds – the 3,500 staff treat over 410,000 patients per year.
Problem
Initiative Improvements Not Being Sustained
TUH had undertaken multiple initiatives in order to reduce waiting lists e.g., outsourcing, National Treatment Purchase Fund, additional clinical staff, more space, etc. While these initiatives delivered benefits in terms of reduced waiting lists these benefits were short-lived. MedModus shared with TUH what they had learned were the critical success factors for sustaining improvement. MedModus was asked to apply these lessons first in TUHs Outpatient Department (OPD).
Solution
Implement a data driven management process
MedModus worked with the CEO, COO, OPD managers and Clinical staff to embed a new OPD management process that when adopted, drove continuous improvement in the selected OPD specialities. The key features of the approach were:
Agreeing with individual specialties what their measurable service aims were
Developing intuitive analytics dashboards that told teams “at a glance” if there was variation from their agreed aims
Training staff in a common “measurement for improvement” language and mindset
Coaching managers from the CEO down how to run data driven action focused meetings
Providing access to electronic action and project trackers to track progress of agreed actions
Aligning service meetings to create a bottom up rather than top-down improvement culture
Results
Sustained Waiting List Improvement
%
Increase in clinic attendances through improved capacity utilisation.
%
Fall in the number of patients waiting over 6 months to access the service.
Months of sustained improvement and counting.
%
Reduction in referral backlog combined with improved coding by using a new referral triage process.
%
Increase in patients seen by Advanced Nurse Practitioners through broader scope of practice. This strategy also increases consultant capacity without the need for further investment.
Testimonial
MedModus showed us that the deployment of BI alone will fix nothing. It is the use of BI as part of a CHANGE management process that drives sustainable improvement.