Quality leaders are trained problem solvers especially at a system level and especially in times of crisis – like the one we are currently facing.
What can you do as a Quality leader to support the COVID-19 efforts at your hospital?
Remember your true north
It is your responsibility as a Quality leader to ensure quality is under consideration during a crisis. If you think of your role in the simplest form, it’s defined as doing the right thing for your patients and for the people who serve your patients. With that definition as your true north, begin thinking about what that looks like in your current situation and begin preparing for what that looks like if your situation worsens.
Gather your team together to answer these questions and formalize your procedures in a written, shared document. Ensure that the document can be updated as situations evolve.
- What are our core set of duties and how could/should they evolve?
- What type of clinical review do we need/not need right now?
- How have our regulatory requirements changed and how does that affect our team? (See resource below.)
- What data do we have currently available and what can it tell us about our populations?
- What teams need to be engaged and what resources do they need from Quality?
- What projects are currently pulling unnecessary resources and what’s our plan for tabling these efforts and redistributing resources.
- What guidance is out there currently? Do we have any evidence of care and treatment? Once those resources are gathered, what is the method by which we can distribute this information and to whom?
- Who on your team has a clinical background? They may be called back to the front lines. Create a triage plan for assigning work to other members as roles shift.
As a Quality leader it’s important to lead in times of crisis. You should balance what you know with what everyone else on your team needs to know. Make sure they feel well informed, but not overwhelmed. Understand that this is taking a toll on everyone emotionally as well, so allowing some flexibility with your staff will go a long way for their mental health.
This crisis can be a good opportunity for your team to be the ones that synthesize what you are learning/have learned. Your records of process and innovation can guide your organization with a way forward when the immediate crisis has resolved. To help your organization, Medisolv has put together a document with all of the changes announced (so far) to quality reporting. This is organized alphabetically by program. Just click the image to download.
We’ve created this resource for you to keep for reference. As things change, we will keep this updated for you. Thank you for all that you do. We appreciate you now more than ever.
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