{"id":4602,"date":"2016-03-12T11:50:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T10:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=4602"},"modified":"2016-03-12T11:50:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T10:50:35","slug":"grit-in-the-oyster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=4602","title":{"rendered":"Grit in the Oyster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pearl_and_Oyster\"<\/a>The word pearl\u00a0<\/em>is a metaphor for something rare, beautiful, and valuable.<\/p>\n

Pearls are formed inside the shell of certain mollusks as a defense mechanism against a potentially threatening irritant.<\/p>\n

The mollusk creates a pearl sac<\/i> to seal off the irritation.<\/p>\n

\n

And so it is with change and improvement.\u00a0 The growth of precious pearls of improvement wisdom – the ones that develop slowly over time – are triggered by an irritant.<\/p>\n

Someone asking an uncomfortable question perhaps, or presenting some\u00a0information that implies\u00a0that an uncomfortable question needs to be asked.<\/p>\n

\n

About\u00a0seven years ago a question was asked “Would improving healthcare flow and quality result in lower costs<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

It is a good question because some believe that\u00a0it would and some believe that it would not.\u00a0 So an experiment to test the hypothesis was needed.<\/p>\n

The Health Foundation stepped up to the challenge and funded a three year project to find the answer.\u00a0The design of the experiment was simple.\u00a0Take two oysters and introduce an irritant into them and see\u00a0if pearls of wisdom appeared.<\/p>\n

The two ‘oysters’ were Sheffield Hospital and Warwick Hospital and the irritant was Dr Kate Silvester<\/em> who is a doctor and manufacturing system engineer and who has a bit-of-a-reputation for asking uncomfortable questions and backing them up with\u00a0irrefutable\u00a0information.<\/p>\n

\n

Two rare and precious pearls did indeed grow.<\/p>\n

In Sheffield, it was proved that\u00a0by\u00a0improving the design of their elderly care\u00a0process they\u00a0improved the outcome for their frail, elderly patients.\u00a0\u00a0More went back to their own homes and fewer left via the mortuary.\u00a0 That was the quality and safety improvement. They also showed a shorter length of stay and a reduction in the number of beds needed to store the work in progress.\u00a0 That was the flow and productivity improvement.<\/p>\n

What was interesting to observe was how difficult it was to get these profoundly important findings published.\u00a0 It appeared that a further irritant had been created for the academic peer review oyster!<\/p>\n

The case study was eventually published in Age and Aging 2014; 43: 472-77<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pearl that grew around this seed is the Sheffield Microsystems Academy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

In Warwick, it was proved that the A&E 4 hour performance could be\u00a0improved by focussing\u00a0on\u00a0improving the design of the processes within the hospital, downstream of A&E.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0a redesign of the phlebotomy and laboratory process to ensure that clinical decisions on a ward round are based on todays blood results.<\/p>\n

This specific case study was eventually published as well, but by a different path – one\u00a0specifically designed\u00a0for sharing improvement case studies –\u00a0JOIS 2015; 22:1-30<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

And the pearls\u00a0of wisdom that developed as a result of\u00a0irritating many oysters in the Warwick bed are\u00a0clearly described by Glen Burley, CEO of Warwick Hospital NHS Trust in this recent video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Getting the results of all these oyster bed experiments\u00a0published required irritating the Health Foundation oyster …\u00a0but a pearl\u00a0grew there too and emerged as the\u00a0full Health Foundation report which can be downloaded here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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So if you want to grow a fistful of improvement and a bagful of pearls of wisdom … then you will need to introduce a bit of\u00a0irritation … and Dr Kate Silvester<\/em><\/strong> is a proven source of grit for your oyster!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word pearl\u00a0is a metaphor for something rare, beautiful, and valuable. Pearls are formed inside the shell of certain mollusks as a defense mechanism against a potentially threatening irritant. The mollusk creates a pearl sac to seal off the irritation. And so it is with change and improvement.\u00a0 The growth of precious pearls of improvement … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Grit in the Oyster”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17,20,22,28,32,35,38,40,41,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-examples","category-flow","category-healthcare","category-metaphors","category-productivity","category-reflections","category-safety","category-sfqp","category-stories","category-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}