Building continuous and sustainable improvement in the mobile environment of a regional hospital in the home unit.

Abstract

Work was undertaken in the Hospital in the Home (HITH) Unit of Ballarat Health Services in Victoria, Australia by a nursing, and clerical staff. The need for continuous and sustainable improvement standards was highlighted during the Better, Healthier, Safer Wards project. The lack of a clear strategy for HITH improvement meant a variation in clinician and patient experience of HITH. The Better, Healthier, Safer HITH intervention was comprised of team sessions with unit staff on understanding the Productive Series Project philosophy and foundation modules. There was then agreement on how it could be modified to the HITH mobile environment. As the majority of the teams work occurred in, or was facilitated by, the HITH car, the team created “toolboxes” and “toolkits” within the mode of transport. Regular audits were created and measured for both maintenance of the tools and transport. A concise method was created to provide patient status information. The HITH Unit displays performance and quality information within their unit to ensure performance against standards. Better, Healthier, Safer HITH demonstrates the benefit of providing staff quick, easy to understand, performance improvement methodology when doing improvement work. A directed strategy with a focus on continuous and sustainable improvement was key to the success in providing patients and staff with a quality experience. The team has modified an existing strategy to work in a mobile unit and will be used in improvement of other mobile units throughout the health service. The strategy could easily be adapted to other organisations.