Addressing operational issues and designing innovative solutions to transform health care requires that leaders have a foundational knowledge of continuous improvement. That’s why OSF HealthCare has prioritized building a culture of performance improvement across the Ministry.
As a key component of these efforts, Ministry Performance Improvement (PI) developed an interactive learning experience to support those in leadership roles across the Ministry develop this competency. The goal is to give these leaders the foundation to drive their own operational or strategic improvements in their respective departments or facilities.
This comprehensive learning experience, deployed during quarterly Leadership Development Institute meetings to more than 2000 leaders, includes two interactive pre-learning modules. These provide an introduction to performance improvement concepts, a deeper dive into some common methodologies, and education on the Performance Improvement journey and evolution at OSF.
During the session, managers, directors, hospital presidents and other executives debrief on the content covered in the pre-learning. They then participate in a mock scenario in small teams to test their ability to select and prioritize work, collect the voice of those they serve and design solutions that meet their needs.
What do they learn?
Although leaders learn the fundamentals of continuous improvement through this learning experience, much of the education comes as leaders apply their skills in a realistic situation.
After the team has chosen a project, they must define the roles and responsibilities of their team members. That includes selecting a process owner, an executive sponsor, a person responsible for change management and someone who will drive the work.
Next, they decide how to collect voice from those who could be impacted by the project and look at data to drive improvement and ensure a focus on value. Learners then design and prioritize solutions, and choose what actions they will take when the data shows the solutions aren’t working. Once a solution is chosen, the final step is to define what it will take to sustain the changes they have made through the solution implementation.
At the end of the learning experience, leaders are encouraged to complete a self-evaluation to identify performance improvement concepts in which they can grow and share this self-evaluation with their one up for discussion. Leaders are also left with an interactive infographic that includes a QR code to a digital resource that contains all of the content they experienced in the pre-learning and in-the-seat sessions.
Why it matters
Leaders with the performance improvement competency have the foundational skills to identify opportunities for improvement and the mindset and confidence to drive rigor around improvement efforts at every level of the organization. This improves our ability as a Ministry to solve core business challenges and exceed the expectations of those we serve and drive efficiency through the Ministry.
We are passionate about supporting leaders across the Ministry, by providing additional experiential learning opportunities that focus on supporting a culture of innovation and growth in innovation competencies as we all work together to transform health care for those we serve.