Coin Spin PDSA Exercise

in Building Capability, Knowledge, Measurement, PDSA, Variation, Videos

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 […]

Video: Building Capacity and Capability: The Really BIG Challenge!

in Building Capability, Videos

By 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, Videos

By 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, Videos

By 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, Videos

By 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 […]

The Elements of a Run Chart

in Health Care, Measurement, Tools & Methods, Variation, Videos

By 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, Videos

By 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, Videos

By 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 […]