By David M. Williams, PhD Several years ago, I was facilitating an improvement learning session and planned to use an exercise to help the participants learn how to do proper PDSAs and track data over time in a run chart. Normally, I would use my Mr. Potato Head PDSA exercise, but I didn’t want to carry […]
Why Should Leaders Support Building Improvement Capability?
in Building Capability, Leadership, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Interview with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. — If this was helpful, share and include me @DaveWilliamsATX. Sign up here to receive a monthly email from me that includes all my blog posts and other Improvement Science resources I think you’d appreciate.
Video: Building Capacity and Capability: The Really BIG Challenge!
in Building Capability, VideosBy David M. Williams, Ph.D. In 2017, I had the honor of sharing the stage with Dr. Amar Shaw, Chief Quality Officer at East London Foundation Trust. Dr Shaw is a consultant forensic psychologist and improvement advisor. Together we delivered a plenary talk on building improvement capability at the BMJ Institute for Healthcare Improvement International […]
Candy Exercise to Learn About Variation
in Building Capability, Variation, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Looking for easy ways to help your team understand variation and the difference between common cause and special cause. One exercise I enjoy using is counting candy. All you need is ten or more “fun size” packets of regular M&Ms and one to two “fun size” peanut M&Ms. Run charts can […]
Challenges of Improvement
in Health Care, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Harvardx course Practical Improvement Science in Health Care with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Don’t be fooled into thinking improvement is easy. It’s slow. It’s thoughtful and often complicated work. I don’t tell you that to dissuade you, but rather to reinforce the point that creating and sustaining meaningful change is […]
Video: Four Run Chart Rules
in Health Care, Measurement, Tools & Methods, Variation, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Harvardx course Practical Improvement Science in Health Care with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. So as we’re getting enough data, we have the ability to start using more sophisticated tools. And when we get 12 data points in a run chart, we can begin to use four rules to help us […]
Creating a Run Chart in Microsoft Excel
in Health Care, Measurement, Tools & Methods, Variation, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Harvardx course Practical Improvement Science in Health Care with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Now you can build a run chart by hand, and I actually strongly encourage that, because it’s really useful to sit down and have that relationship with putting your own data in and knowing where the changes […]
The Elements of a Run Chart
in Health Care, Measurement, Tools & Methods, Variation, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Harvardx course Practical Improvement Science in Health Care with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. A run chart includes several elements. There’s a y-axis, that’s the one that goes up and down on the left hand side, and this shows what you’re actually measuring. This is what your data is about. Along […]
An Example of Using Data
in Measurement, Public Safety, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Harvardx course Practical Improvement Science in Health Care with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Here’s an example from an ambulance service. By contract, the service has to achieve a response time performance goal of 90%. So the board report shows the percentages on time each month. As long as the goal […]
How to Build Your Degree of Belief Over Time
in Health Care, Knowledge, PDSA, VideosBy David M. Williams, PhD Harvardx course Practical Improvement Science in Health Care with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. When we develop a change our degree of belief starts off slow, because we have limited knowledge to support our test and our predictions. As we do more testing and discover what works and what doesn’t, as […]