Quality Improvement Project Team Champion Case Study

Once Lauren starts assembling a quality improvement team, Lauren should choose team members who work between systems and across multiple disciplines within the rehabilitation practice. Lauren should choose a team champion, clinical leader, technical expert, day to day task leader, and a project sponsor for project contributing team members for her QI initiative. Lauren needs to start her quality improvement project by assigning a team champion. The team champion should be an individual who is committed to continuously improving the health care organizations processes, systems and guidelines. The team champion should show an interest for ongoing improvement initiatives and ongoing effective quality improvement processes. The clinical leader …show more content…
The vascular surgeon who leads the wound care team would be a great fit to take on the responsibility as the Quality Improvement project team champion. The vascular surgeon has already demonstrated to Lauren that he is interested in ongoing process improvement and implementation. The vascular surgeon has also demonstrated an interest in gathering data to better improve processes by asking Lauren to gather data on patient length of stay and nursing home transfers. An interest in gathering necessary patient data to improve ongoing processes make the vascular surgeon a good QI project team champion. Ellie the rehab supervisor would be a good fit to fill the Clinical Leadership role of the Quality Improvement Project team. As the rehabilitation department supervisor, Ellie would have authority to implement process changes and adoption. Ellie should understand how implementing new processes would impact parts of the departments. Also, since Ellie is in a supervisor role, Ellie can tackle any problems that might arise due to the new process change. Betsy the RHIA should be on the QI team for her technical expertise. Betsy’s knowledge of HIM processes makes her a good candidate for the QI Technical Expert role. Betsy has technical expertise of the already in place quality management processes and technical knowledge of the rehabilitation centers health information systems already in place. Since Betsy already manages the HIM systems of the rehabilitation center and three …show more content…
For a quality improvement project team to be successful, quality teams must emphasize an organized infrastructure to support the team’s work. Quality improvement team members should be chosen based on QI team building qualities in order for the project to be successful. Team and team members should be committed to change and the success of the improvement project. Quality improvement project success will not be attained if the quality team and team members are not fully committed to process change and the success of the improvement project. Team members should represent the discipline and work directly with the process that is the QI project target. If the team members are not familiar with the process, then very little insight would be delivered on process change from those team members. Quality improvement team members should have an open mind to teach and or learn from other team members. If the team members of a quality improvement team are unwilling to learn or teach other members of the team, project success should not be expected. The most simple and yet the most important quality of any quality improvement team and team members is open communication. Quality improvement teams and team members must maintain open project communication progress with facility staff, facility leaders, and customers when applicable. The final quality that a quality improvement team and team members should hold in high regards is the willingness to assume team and individual