Engaging staff at different levels

Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:45 -- Jne310

Thoughts on not having senior leadership on every team. This does seem more appropriate for PM at times, but for QI, I've always been of the thought that you really need to have all levels of involvement. When I was a senior health environmentalist and I would go into a restaurant to inspect, who do you think I would ask if I really needed to know what was happening in the establishment? The manager--Negative. The dishwasher! The dishwasher knew all the in's and out's and would tell you all you needed to know (and some things you didn't....!). I'm curious what you all do to help encourage others to have front line staff on QI teams? Thoughts? and for PM--are most of you seeing that this is mostly senior leadership led?

#longwaytogo #canyouhashtaghere

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Submitted by LHeck on

For our QI teams we try to have a mix of participants from frontline staff to senior management. When a team is forming for a particular topic we first ask staff at all levels to volunteer. If this first request does not generate interest then we ask managers to identify who would be a good fit. It really depends on what the focus of the QI project is but it's important to have the people that do the work every day to give input to the process. For the PM it is mostly senior management led . The challenge here is effectively comunicating the goals to the rest of the staff.

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Submitted by Tracey Kellogg on

I agree - a mix is best. I just started up a QI project on behalf of our Administrator. We have done a few QI projects, but we are generally in the early stages of making QI an institutional norm. Because the project has to do with our newly designed performance management system (for which we have a nice policy and a very clunky process), our Administrator wanted the team should only be comprised of managers because they create the annual work plans.

Oh no, said I! If you want QI and performance management as a District norm, you must have a diverse team to the generate the best solutions; especially those staff are the next generation of our leaders. In order for us to be successful, we need to involve all levels of the organization, rather than having these new ideas go down as another crazy management idea that no-one really uses. I am very fortunate that our Administrator is letting me run with the project with a number of staff on the team.

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Tracey Kellogg, CPA
Kitsap Public Health District

Submitted by Jne310 on

YES Tracey! Good thoughts, thanks LHeck and Tracey!

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C. Janie Cambron, RS, BS, MPH
Program Manager, EnviroHealthLink, Kentucky's Environmental PH Tracking Network
Kentucky Department for Public Health
Phone: 502-564-4537 ext. 4088; janie.cambron@ky.gov

Submitted by temx39 on

Although there was not a QI committee when I worked in a restaurant, I would have to say that having a mixture of management, cooks, waitresses, and different staff, new and seasoned will give the best perspective on things that need to be improved to make the restaurant run well.

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Grace Gorenflo's picture
Submitted by Grace Gorenflo on

A critical tenet of QI is to involve all of those who touch the process that is being improved. A good way to think about this is to identify the start point and the end point of the process, and all that occurs in between. An initial step in QI is to complete a flow chart or process map to ensure clarity of the process; after this step has been completed a team may identify additional people who touch the process. (Note that, depending on the work involved, and the number of people involved, you may just need a representative from a job classification rather than every last individual who engages in the work.)

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Submitted by LauraHolmes on

We take the same approach as Grace for QI but we require a member of upper management sponsor each QI project to break down barriers, make quick decisions, and ensure implementation of the improvement. For PM, which is embedded in a performance management system, accountability resides at the manager level: program, section chief and bureau chief. Program managers are free to include staff in the process.

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Laura Holmes, MPA, CPM
Quality Specialist
Office of Quality Assurance and Improvement
NH Department of Health and Human Services