Presentation on Data Collection for Healthcare QA/QI in Chronic Disease

A Few More Words about on Presentation about Data Collection

My good colleague on LinkedIn Zewdie Mulissa alerted me to a project he did using the PDSA which resulted in a publication. I asked him a few questions about how he implemented the PDSA. Here are a few salient points:

• Data Sources: He told me they only used administrative data that had been cleaned up. They did NOT have a research protocol they put through the IRB or ethics board, or gather any prospective data from anyone.
• Goal of the project: They were developing systemwide metrics using the cross-platform administrative data. They were working out ways to operationalize measurements of the healthcare system’s function using the data.

So in a way, this effort punctuates the points I made in the video. It is not really possible to do cross-subsystem studies using the PDSA where you really get into the weeds of what is wrong, and how to fix it. I’m impressed that a publication came out, but notice that these are the metrics reported in the abstract:

• 212 managers were trained in the PDSA
• 4 prototype improvement collaboratives were completed
• 102 change ideas were tested
• A change package was developed with 83 successfully-tested ideas

I’ll be honest – if I can fix a few metrics in your health system in a year, I’ll throw a party. This idea that you can package up and deploy 83 successfully-tested ideas to improve your healthcare system seems fanciful – especially considering the greatest beneficiary of the PDSA – the US healthcare system. And training 212 managers and testing 102 change ideas sounds like a waste of money. Like I said, if I can help you all get through a few research protocols a year, we’d all be pretty satisfied, I believe.