This week a ground-breaking case study was published.
It describes how a team in South Wales discovered how to make the flows visible in a critical part of their cancer pathway.
Radiology.
And they did that by unintentionally falling into a trap! A trap that many who set out to improve health care services fall into. But they did not give up. They sought guidance and learned some profound lessons.
Part 1 of their story is shared here.
One lesson they learned is that, as they take on more complex improvement challenges, they need to be equipped with the right tools, and they need to be trained to use them, and they need to have practiced using them.
Another lesson they learned is that making the flows in a system visible is necessary before the current behaviour of the system can be understood.
And they learned that they needed a clear diagnosis of how the current system is not performing; before they can attempt to design an intervention to deliver the intended improvement.
They learned how the Study-Plan-Do cycle works, and they learned the reason it starts with “Study”, and not with “Plan”.
They tried, failed, took one step back, asked, listened and learned.
Then with their new knowledge, more advanced tools, and deeper understanding they took two steps forward; diagnosed problem, designed an intervention, and delivered a significant improvement.
And visualised just how significant.
Then they shared Part 2 of their story … here.
