My head is a buzzing this morning with poems by John Godfrey Saxe, Theory of Constraints, Six Thinking Hats®, managing transitions and discrete event simulations!
It is not because of the rather lovely bottle of red yesterday evening nor as a result of an episode of the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy but rather my start on the Foundations of Improvement Science in Healthcare course.
The Three Wins book that kicks off the course should be offered to all those folks who are trying to bring about improvements to patients but finding it frustrating and about to consider giving it up. You know who you are and I have been there on a few occasions myself. The book plots the journey of the vascular team at Good Hope Hospital who deliver some fantastic changes to improve the service to patients and in doing so achieve the Three Wins: quality, performance and motivation. John’s story fills your heart with joy!
So it is Saturday morning and sporting events are happening around me. I am delighted to have started my course and have an end in mind. My G-R-O-W outline is done and I have my Niggles that I will convert to NoNos and my NiceIfs that I want to end up as Nuggets. I have played the Post It® Note and Six Dice games and begun ‘learning’ the concepts behind improvement science that I know will complement any people skills I might possess. The human side of change, the key goals of quality and performance are all wrapped up together as we all know well and here it is becoming clearer how these things can and must be pulled off simultaneously.
I am excited about all this and having chatted to a cracking CEO leader yesterday I can see more and more clearly how his goals of deeper engagement and involvement with the hospitals teams, his desire to improvement the patient’s view of the services offered and also sorry to say this but how the money can be made to work harder can be delivered.
I have programmed some further time next week to hit the next stage of the course where the more technical bits get explained and illustrated using the exercises, examples and language that thus far are making this fun.
Next Friday sees the arrival of a friend from Australia who has not been seen in 10 years. The next blog might be interesting!
Steve Peak