Share Data
Share data with stakeholders
Later, we talk about continually sharing progress with those affected at the clinic levels. Here, you should remember that initial buy-in needs to be stoked! Keep your core team apprised your progress.
You will have experienced set-backs, perhaps obtained some preliminary data on the prevalence of substance abuse in your population and may have done focus groups or surveys with the clinical staff and physicians to decide how best to implement in your clinic(s). Do not expect this to be easy, and if there is turnover in your team, anticipate the need to “re-recruit” champions. One of your milestones (which will keep your feet to the fire) is to schedule continual (reasonably spaced!) reporting meetings with the stakeholders. And what will you share? All sorts of outcome data is available to you, and you need to decide what you will track and how to track it (which is discussed later in this course) but at this stage its as simple as “have we met our deadlines? If not, why not and what are we going to do about it!”
Make it and keep it public
Experts in clinical quality improvement suggest creating a “data wall.” This is good both for when clinics go live, in which case a wall in the clinic is perfect! Or, for the team, if there is a regular meeting space, use it, or, better, yet, a live web site with updates where the team can check in and that you can print for meetings or otherwise share with people. The data wall will track important accomplishments.
Track progress frequently and adapt as needed.
The “data wall” suggested above (or other tracking mechanisms) will demonstrate deviation from plans and can be a clue to problems with the design. When you make adjustments to the process, the data wall will quickly show whether you are headed in the right direction.
What if you might miss a date?
You will. Adjust your timeline if necessary but don’t let the setbacks stop you from proceeding. If you were surprised that it took us 6 months to introduce screening and keep it on track in our pilot, you won’t be now.