Kathie Dyer, Quality Improvement Council Consultant, Oklahoma City-County Health Department
Efficiency at
Oklahoma City-County (OK) Health Department (OCCHD) is a prime objective in our day-to-day operations, and as the Quality Improvement (QI) Council Consultant at OCCHD, I am always on the lookout for new tools and ideas that can make our process more efficient.
Like many health departments across the country, we are tasked with doing more with less; thus, the importance of improved efficiency. Problem solving and efficiency go together, so when I first saw the
A3 Problem Solving Report from the Public Health Foundation (PHF), it immediately caught my attention. Upon further review, this tool also supported the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) approach and provided a documentation process for us to follow. Having all the necessary steps for an improvement project included in one concise report was very inviting, and we were very excited to put this tool to use.
Customizing the Tool for OCCHD’s Use"Our QI Council is excited to put this report to use at OCCHD."
- Kathie Dyer
As with any organization, we each have our own styles that work best for us, so we began to modify PHF’s A3 Problem Solving Report template to suit OCCHD’s needs. We customized the paper size, integrated the report with our existing AIM Statement process, and identified other ways to track the project status easily.
Although A3 refers to a paper size, that size is not readily available at all our printers and copiers. We reduced the form to a legal-size document, and customized it with a few modifications. First, because OCCHD staff begins each QI project with the development of the
AIM Statement as a team, we combined the Current State/Improvement Goals and the Define Improvement Objectives sections , and made a note to attach the AIM Statement to the report. Second, we changed the implementation Plan and Status section. We liked having a handy way to track assignments. We keep most of our projects to three months, so we removed the fourth and fifth month columns, as well as the completion columns, using only the On Schedule/Problems/Late to track the status of the process. These modifications gave us additional space for other areas of the report.
We are using our modified version of the A3 Problem Solving Report for the first time in a current QI project focused on customer satisfaction. This program-specific project will use the PDCA cycle and capture the entire process, but without a formal storyboard ending. The team began the project by focusing on phone call efficiency, and is currently gathering data through a phone audit. When the audit is complete, that information will be included under current data, followed by root cause analysis and other steps of the process. We will document each phase of the project on the A3 Report. As you can see, each step in the PDCA process will be on one sheet and greatly improve the efficiency of the project.
Our QI Council is excited to put this report to use at OCCHD. Our benefits coordinator, who also serves on the Council, will be using this form to track his insurance enrollment process. He feels that with the necessary information on one sheet he can easily identify areas for continued improvement to better serve employees.
We feel this report can be useful for a group project as well, and is a support to the PDCA process. At OCCHD, we will continue the search for ways to become more efficient, because there is always room for continuous improvement.
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