Question

Many examples of improvement projects conducted by healthcare organizations can be found on the internet. Find an example of each type of project: PDSA, RCI, FOCUS-PDCA, FADE, Lean, and Six Sigma. What is similar about each project? What is different about each project?

Answer 1

Answer:

Example of each type of project:

• PDSA – This stands for Plan Do Study Act – Healthcare apply the PDSA for their nursing process to improve patient’s satisfaction. Patient not satisfied with nursing approach, so healthcare added a alarm, so that patient can hit alarm, nursing representative will visit and see the patient.    
• RCI Tool – Example – Healthcare administration team assigned with their key responsibility ( R ), who them need to consult ( C ) and whom they need to inform (I). This forms RCI for the administration team at healthcare.
• FOCUS-PDCA – This is the application of FOCUS PDSA, means FOCUS stands for F= Find a process to improve, O= organize a team, C= Clarify current process knowledge, U= Understand current variability/capability, S= select a plan for continuous improvement.   Thus in this approach the FOCUS PDSA is applied.

Example – Health care management trained the nursing staff for FOCUS PDSA in the nursing process and developing a continuous improvement plan for the nursing process with FOCUS PDSA.

• FADE – Focus, Analyze, Develop and execute – The lab investigation team to focus on their lab process, analyze their lab process, develop their lab process and execute the actions required to make the improvement at the lab process.
• Lean, and Six Sigma: Example - Reduce the lead time by 25% for medicine distribution at the healthcare organization to enable speedy nursing for patients.

The similar about each project is that they all are on the same theme that they are targeting to improve the process or system to avoid the potential problems and improves the efficiency and effectiveness at the healthcare .The differences among them is that their approach are different and they apply different approach and tools for analyzing and improving the processes.