Running Improvement Collaboratives with Life QI

Running a QI collaborative using Life QI

We know that working with teams across a whole state, country, or even continent is no easy task! Life QI has bespoke functionality to connect disparate teams, collate data and share learning. Healthcare quality collaboratives, learning networks and improvement programs use the Programs feature in Life QI to connect hospital teams working on the same initiative.

To reduce any duplication of effort for your collaborative team, the Project templating tool allows for a standardized approach and the inbuilt communication tool allow regular interaction with teams and sharing between them. Charting and data collection tools make it simple for hospital teams to run their PDSA’s, then track and document their improvements.

This diagram shows how teams and projects are organised into one improvement collaborative. Collate data, track progress, share successes and improve communication with your teams using Life QI.

Make life simple for end users

Through years of facilitating improvement collaboratives to deliver real results, we understand that one of the principle drivers of success is engaging your hospital or clinic teams to contribute. Life QI empowers frontline staff to own their improvement work, test their changes and monitor their success. All of this results in more satisfied collaborative teams and better improvement as a result.
Collaborative teams are often expected to use multiple templates, non-intuitive data reporting and provide manual progress updates. Life QI provides everything they need in one place to ensure they can run their project and track their results with minimum fuss. Plus, you can monitor their progress and provide feedback to teams directly through the platform.

Streamline data collection and analysis

Accurate and timely data are a key element to success in any improvement work. This is particularly true when coordinating teams from numerous sites, all with a different background in data and improvement.

The Measures functionality allows you to define whats being measured and when, and even pre-define the type of chart you will use to analyse the collected data. The aggregation tool in Life QI provide a simple interface for teams to enter their data and see their own progress, whilst seamlessly collating the data from any number of sites at once.

Teams can understand their own progress using the assisted interpretation of special cause events.

Improve communication and peer-to-peer learning

Regular interaction with and between teams is a great way to accelerate learning and improvement in a quality collaborative. Naturally, some teams will progress and improve quicker than others - the power of a collaborative is using the success as a catalyst to spread improvement in other teams and multiplying the impact as a result.
Life QI provides a common methodology, a central repository for all activity and the ability to share success between teams and spread improvement faster.

In January 2021, CPQCC started the “Optimizing Antibiotic Stewardship in California NICUs (OASCN)” collaborative to minimize unnecessary and/or inappropriate antibiotic use in newborns. The collaborative, run in partnership with the RAND Corporation, is a statewide initiative involving 31 teams and 372 antibiotic subscribers. The stated aim is to safely reduce antibiotic use (Total AUR) by 20% on average among participating sites by end of the 12-month collaborative period. Teams utilized baseline data dating back 2 years, supplemented with regular monthly data entry into Life QI. PDSAs run at the site level have already shown a significant improvement toward the main outcome measure. The collaborative is due to conclude in June 2022, and we cant wait to hear about the full results!

CPQCC are currently running two further work programs in Life QI which are both variations of the Growth Advancement in the NICU (GAIN) collaborative. 'GAIN: Surgical Patients' aims to improvement growth and nutrition for infants who have had intestinal surgeries, whilst 'GAIN: Ten Point Nine' aims to improve growth and nutrition for infants with a birth weight >1500 grams in smaller NICUs across the state. Both initiatives launched in July 2021 and are due to run for 2 years.

The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH), part of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, uses Life QI to run its national improvement collaboratives. One such collaborative involved 38 mental health units in England working to reduce the use of restrictive practices.

Through the use of Life QI to facilitate individual team work and cross-Trust sharing, 24 of the units realised reductions ranging from 25% to 100% in one of more of the core measures. Overall this equated to a 15% reduction in restrictive practices nationwide within 18 months.

NCCMH are also working with mental health hospitals and healthcare providers to drive collaborative improvement in areas such as Sexual Safety, Suicide Prevention, Enjoying Work, and Advancing MH Equality.