Showcasing QI Success with Department

Great question- and great idea to showcase your hard work! One of my biggest struggles is spreading the QI bug around the office. :) We have a department-wide newsletter that discusses all sorts of news, and I have submitted articles about our QI projects to that over the past few months. I like including it in the general newsletter, because I feel like it may have a greater reach, whereas not everyone might be interested enough to read through an entire accreditation update newsletter (although I know I would! :)

Since you have access to the accreditation newsletter, I still think sharing your project updates there is a great idea! My general advice for writing an article (especially to an audience of QI newbies) is to explain how simple QI can be; make it clear that it doesn't have to be complex or even create a huge change!

Another idea might be to give short status update articles about a long-term project you are working on in each edition of the newsletter. A "to be continued" sort of thing each time. It might get some people to stay interested!

Good luck! Please keep us updated! :)

One thing we've done at Denver Public Health that's actually been really successful to spread the 'QI bug' and get programs more excited about QI work was to create a monthly QI award. My (amazing and very creative) Quality Committee came up with the idea to have a QI mascot and we picked a large stuffed penguin, named Oppy- the Opportunity Penguin. We vote each month on who gets the 'Oppy Award' based on the current list of QI projects. To be eligible, the QI projects have to at least have a team in place and they have to be listed on our online tracking list (therefore, they don't have to be huge projects or even completed). The awardees get to have Oppy in their program area for the month, get to dress up/accessorize Oppy as they please, and also get to present at the Program Directors/Managers meeting on their project that month. We take a picture of Oppy with the group and put up posters and update our internal website with the pictures and information about their QI project. Our PR/Marketing staff even post the Oppy pictures on our Denver Public Health Facebook/Twitter pages (so you can follow us on Facebook/Twitter if you want to see Oppy each month :)).

Of all the things we have done, I honestly feel that the stuffed penguin was the best idea we had. It's a fun award, groups have fun decorating Oppy for the month, and it gives us a chance each month to talk about the award (which is just secretly our way to talk about QI). It also introduces a bit of friendly competition which works well around here.

If you want any other information, just let me know. :)

At Deschutes County Health Services we have a bulletin board where we highlight QI project progress on storyboards and also showcase QI tips and have extra forms for teams to complete if they have an idea for a QI project. The bulletin board is located in a main hallway and staff get excited to see their projects dispayed and they like to track the progress of other projects as well.

I have struggled with gaining traction (or attention) for that matter regarding department's awareness to QI projects. A bi-weekly e-letter may help begin to create that snowball.

Great ideas! I like the Oppy idea. In our public health department we have QI as a standing agenda item for each of our team/program meetings. It places an expectation to talk about QI. It allows for specific time to talk about a "issue or area for improvement". We might use a QI tool such as Five Whys to stimulate discussion and implement QI without it being an additional meeting. Placing that artifact on every agenda starts to faciliate QI discussion which can then lead to a project.