In a previous QI-Tip, I explained how to develop an aim statement. First you and your team decides what you want to improve, and then you develop an aim statement that includes:
• For whom?
• By how much?
• By when?
Of course, you’ll want to collect some data to see how much success your team is having in reaching its aim.
For example, if you want to reduce emergency department visits related to pain by 50% you’ll need to measure the percentage of patients who go to the ED for pain each month. There are many ways to do this. You can have clinicians ask their patients if they’ve visited the ED to help manage pain. Or, you can develop a sample and call patients and/or their family caregivers to ask, “In the last 3 months have you [has your family member] been to the ED to help you [them] deal with pain?” Either measure is legit. The data you collect should be plotted on a line chart, called a run chart.
Or, if your team’s aim is to reduce the total number of acute care admissions, you’ll develop a data collection plan to determine if patients your team members are servicing have acute care admissions. Then, plot that data in a run chart to see if your team is actually reducing acute care admissions each month. Maybe you can collect the reasons for the admissions and do an analysis: How many are related to congestive heart failure, to diet problems (for CHF or for diabetes), to accidents, etc.? This will allow you to customize interventions with patients to further decrease the rate of acute care admissions.
Below is an example of a run chart that shows reduced acute care admissions. If you find you have, for example, 8-10 admissions per month begin to create a run chart and plot the data each month. After working on it for 10 months, you can see the example shows a nice reduction in admissions. A run chart is a quick and easy way to display data that will help your team see if it’s on the right track towards improvement.
Jane Taylor, CHAMP Improvement Advisor
